Travel to The Past: Reading The Lightning Thief
by princessoffandoms
Summary: Annabeth is missing Percy, everyone at camp half-blood is. But when she, Jason, Piper and Leo all get transported back in time (thanks to everyone's favorite god) will they be able to keep the futures secrets, all while listening in on the thoughts of everyone's favorite seaweed brain.*Hey, I had this story up as Wisegirl2003 but lost the password to the account. Still same story.*
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys, this is princessoffandoms (formerly known as Wisegirl2003). So, I had a lot of issues going on in my life and honestly now is really a bad time. I'm currently seeing councillors to try and figure out what sort of mental disorder I have and why I'm constantly feeling the way I am. Anyways, I know it's a crappy excuse but that's why I stopped posting this story over a year ago on that account. Now, the issue is that I've lost the password to Wisegirl2003 which is why I am re-uploading all of Travel to The Past: Reading The Lightning Thief and all of the chapters I had of Travel to The Past: Reading The Sea of Monsters. I had plans with this story and I'm sorry that I stopped them. I hope to pick up where I left of and hopefully finish off all of R.R's PJO and HoO serious.**

**Over the next few weeks there might be a surge of chapters before the updates start to slow down. When they slow down it means that I've reached the end of my previously up-loaded chapters and it's taking longer because I have to write the chapters. I hope you all understand and forgive me. Also, if any of you know people who read these stories on my old account could tell them about this I would be very grateful. I know people are wanting to figure out how this story is going to end and if you could let them in on this then I'm sure they would be grateful.**

**P.S. I don't own anything. PJO and HoO belong to Rick Riordan. I have never and most likely will never own any of his stories. This story is for fun, and I hope that nobody takes it the wrong way. I respect and honour Rick Riordan and I hope you all do the same. So on with the story.**

It was an average summer solstice and the gods were all arguing like usual, while Hestia tended the fire.

"Mother Rea always liked you best."

"Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters."

"How could you hate love, everyone loves love."

"Love kills young maidens, you forsaken my hunt."

"How dare you steel my daughter away from me."

"Will you get over it woman, it's been centuries."

"People with intellect are so much smarter than machines."

"Machines beat people any day."

"How dare you crash your bike again! Did you think you wouldn't get in trouble! You better be sorry!"

"Ugg, Sorry mother, no mother, yes mother"

"My haikus are incredible. How dare anyone say differently."

"Yes, yes they are. Hey Dionysus, can I borrow some drachmas?"

"Hey, my wallets gon- HERMES!"

Just then the light flashed and 4 demi-gods appeared in front of the gods. The oldest was a girl that looked to be about 17. She had curly, honey blond hair with stormy grey eyes. Her eyes were full of knowledge yet sorrow, like she'd seen death and new that it was only a matter of time until it was her turn.

There was another girl who looked to be a year younger then the first. She had dark brown hair that was cut choppy with kaleidoscope eyes. You could tell by the way she looked and dressed that she tried not to look beautiful, but it didn't work.

The boy to her left had sandy blond hair and electric blue eyes, so electric that when you looked at them you felt as though you were being electrocuted. He was looking at the first girl as if waiting for an explanation.

The final boy had curly black hair and brown eyes with a twinkle of humor in them, he somewhat resembled a Latino version of Santa's elves. He was staring around the room in admiration and awe.

The first girl bows and the others follow her lead though it's obvious that all 4 of them would rather not bow and it's taking all of their self-control to make them. Finally the first girl speaks. "Why is it that you called us here?" she asks and the gods all have a puzzled look on their faces. "We didn't call you here." Zeus answers. "Now who are you?"

"But then…" the first girl says with a puzzled look on her face. Just then a hard package falls out of the air and lands on the Latino Santa's elf's head. "Owwww" he groans while the other 2 laughed. The blond girl walks over to the package and rips off a note. Her eyes quickly skim the page then she groans.

"What is it Annabeth?" the second girl says to who must be Annabeth. "It's in English so my dyslexia keeps acting up." Annabeth says. Just then there's a flash of light on the page and when the light dies Annabeth starts to read the note. "It's in greek and it says:

**Dear gods and demi-gods,**

**I have sent all you demi-gods back in time to read some books with the past gods. The year is 1997 making all of you babies. The gods will completely forget the books until each book has come to pass in the future, as will you demi-gods with the books that have not taken place yet. Demi-gods introduce yourself with your name, parent, and title. No killing, maiming, or injuring whatsoever as you do not want to change the future for the worse. After finishing each book a guest or a few guests will come. Have a good day and have fun reading the books.**

**Yours awesomely, **

**The most awesome god ever *thunder* the **_**Second**_** most awesome god ever**

**Phoebus Apollo.**

"So I guess we should introduce ourselves. My name is Annabeth chase, daughter of Athena, one of the seven and architect of Olympus." Annabeth says "Why is Olympus getting re-designed?" Athena asks with a hint of pride in her voice. "I'll tell you later." She replies and the other girl walks up.

"My name is Piper Mclean, Daughter of Aphrodite and one of the seven. Oh, and if any of you call me Barbie I will rip your head off and have a friend of mine feed the rest of you to her pet wolves. Got it?" She asks and all of the gods nod their head in ascent while the goddesses smile at the girl's courage.

The blond haired boy to the front and the girl absentmindedly takes his hand. "I'm Jason Grace, Son of Jupiter, one of the seven and praetor of camp Jupiter." He says while all the gods and goddesses open their mouths wide in shock. Piper lightly squeezes his hand and they return back to the others.

The final demi-god walks to the front with a huge smile on his face. "The names Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus, one of the seven, fire user, and-" he pauses and looks to the others. "What am I to the Argo II?" he questions and piper replies "repair boy."

"So yeah, and supreme leader of the Argo II." He finishes before walking back to the others. "I guess I'll get the books then." Annabeth says before walking to the package, opening it, the revealing 5 books. She picks up what seems to be the first book, studies the cover, then gasps and drops the book.

"What is it?" Asks Piper while Annabeth tries to collect herself. "It's called…" she chokes out. "It's called Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the lightning thief." The other demi-gods all gasp while Zeus orders "well let's read then." Annabeth slowly nods and opens the book to the first chapter.

**I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-algebra Teacher** Annabeth starts.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys, so like I said last chapter I'm posting a bunch of these now. I do not, have not, and most likely never will own PJO or HoO. They belong to R.R (Rick Riordan) and I'm not attempting to take credit for work that's not mine.**

**I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-algebra Teacher** Annabeth reads.

"I like this kid" States Hermes.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

The half-bloods all nod

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:**

"Whatever you do, don't take his advice." Annabeth says then continues.

**close this book right now. Believe what ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

"That's actually not that bad." Annabeth says looking confused

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

"Unfortunately" The demi-gods all mutter and the gods look down at them with sad eyes.

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

"Fiction?" Athena asks. "I guess the books available for mortals" Annabeth replies

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before **_**they **_**sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"If any of you say it I will stab my dagger down your throat" Piper threatens. "You have one scary daughter Aphrodite." Hermes whispers to a beaming Aphrodite.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

**I'm twelve years old. Until a **_**few **_**months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid?**

"Yes" Annabeth mutters while everyone else looks at her.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

Annabeth snorts then says "See he agrees with me." to a bunch of smiling gods and demi-gods.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"Sounds like fun." Athena and Annabeth say.

**I know—it sounds like torture.**

Athena huffs while Annabeth rolls her eyes and everyone else laughs.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"Sounds like Chiron" Dionysus mutters while everyone else agrees.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

"Troubles Percy's middle name" Annabeth says well shaking her head.

**Boy, was I wrong.**

"See."

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

Annabeth just smiled and rolled her eyes while everyone else started laughing.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"No" Hermes and Apollo choked out. "We want more."

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover** **in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

All the girls crinkled their noses. "Who eats peanut butter and ketchup?" asks Aphrodite.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

"Grover's not going to like that description" Annabeth mutters while everyone chuckles.

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Ugg, he just gave up his cover." Annabeth groans

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"No fair" Hermes says. "We wanted more entertainment."

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

"And ketchup? In your hair?" Aphrodite asks confused and disgusted.

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

**"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

"Fight, Fight, Fight" Ares Chants

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

"What's gonna happen?" Leo asks Jason. "How should I know?"

**In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Longer." Athena says while smiling.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**stele, **_**for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"For trying to learn?" Athena says looking Appalled.

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

"Suuuuure." Annabeth Says. "Nervous breakdown my but."

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

"Monster?" Jason asks but gets no response in return.

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Right," Jason says. "Monster."

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you **_**shut up**_**?"**

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

"Of Course it did." Annabeth said. Aphrodite sat up straighter on her throne. Someone was giving of sad love; someone had a crush on Percy. It couldn't be her daughter, she's still holding hands with Jason, so it must be… ANNABETH!

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

The older gods just shuddered. "It just had to be that one didn't it" Hades says.

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.**

**"And he **_**did **_**this because ..."**

**"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god,** **and—"**

"GOD!" roared Zeus in rage. "Lord Zeus" Annabeth says calmly. "Percy doesn't know about the gods or anything at that point, I assure you he meant no disrespect and that he knows the truth now" Zeus huffed but excepted it.

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

**"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.**

"How did Kronos mistake dad for a rock?" Jason asks. Poseidon just smiled at him "You see nephew, your father is as dense as a rock so father couldn't tell the difference." All the gods (save Zeus) laugh so hard they fell of their thrones; and all the goddesses and demi-gods try and hold back their laugh, but some can't.

**And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"**

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

"Yes mortal" Hera Agreed. "Eeew."

**"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

"He just summed up what could be debated as the biggest war ever in a few sentences" says a shocked Athena.

**Some snickers from the group.**

"Why are they laughing, he got it right?" Asked Hestia who as greeted with silence, as no one had the answer.

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted" Apollo says

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

"Oh no, I think like a goat" Apollo sulked.

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

"Chiron needs lessons on how to change subjects; I'll ask some of my kids to teach him." Hermes says

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"Men are doofuses, they do not need to pretend to be what they are already." Artemis states.

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"Not everything but close" Annabeth whispers and Aphrodite gets that sad love sensation again.

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

**"Oh."**

"That's pretty much his answer to everything." Annabeth explains to the gods.

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

"It was necessary" Annabeth whispers and once again Aphrodite sits straight up in her throne and smiles.

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever **_**lived, **_**and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**

"That would suck for Percy." Annabeth says. Hermes looks confused "Why." Instead of answering Annabeth kept reading.

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be **_**as good; **_**he expected me to be **_**better. **_**And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

"Oh" Hermes says. "Continue."

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"He probably was" Said Demeter.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.**

"What are you 2 fighting about?" Ares asks. "Not that I'm complaining or anything" He quickly adds.

**We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from **_**that **_**school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"He felt that way?" Asks Annabeth with a hint of pity in her voice.

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

"You can say that again." Annabeth snorts.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

There isn't one person in that throne room that isn't laughing.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

"Mama's boy" Ares coughs.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

"Now that's just gross." Artemis states.

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"The newest fashion" Apollo dramatically says then stands up sprays his face with liquid Cheetos and struts around the room, while everyone else tries not to laugh or puke.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

'_A wave?'_ Athena thought

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

"POSEIDON!" Zeus roars so loudly that Olympus shakes. "Calm brother." Poseidon sighs. "If you are after me about the oath I remind you that your son is standing in this very room." "

That seems irrelevant as he is roman and we made the pact as greek. Zeus flashes his hand and a baby boy appears in front of him. "You broke the oath Poseidon, now your son shall pay the price." Zeus grabbed his lightning bolt as though he was about to strike when a daring voice yells "stop!"

All eyes turn to Annabeth as she stands up to Zeus. "You dare-" he starts but is cut off by Annabeth. "Yes I dare. Percy may be a son of Poseidon who is my mother's rival, but he is a good hero and friend. I have fought beside him in many battles and he would give up his life to save another's. Percy is the hero of the prophecy, but he does not destroy Olympus he fights along with other half-bloods to save it, and in the end we won. If you kill Percy now you will condemn the fate of Olympus." Annabeth glares at Zeus and his own glare recedes, but does not stop. Poseidon waves his trident and Percy disappears.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

"No" Hermes groans "You never guess you punishment it makes it worse."

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"See" Hermes says. "No one disagreed with you Hermes." Hephaestus says making Hermes blush.

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. **_**I **_**pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

"That's one brave satyr." Hades comments.

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—**_**will**_—**stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

"Ugg, this is not good." Aphrodite complains

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "**_**Now**_**."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"Scary" Ares jokes, while smirking. "It scared you" Annabeth retorts and Ares stops smirking

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

"That's what monsters want you to think" Athena states.

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"I thought he was supposed to be watching Percy." Poseidon says with a hint of worry.

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

"It never is" Hestia sighs then returns her attention to the hearth.

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

"Perfect, I sense a fight about to happen." Ares says with a giant smile that recedes when he sees Poseidon's look.

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

"He was actually polite." Annabeth stutters as if it's the weirdest thing she's ever learned.

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me. **

"If only, young Percy, if only." Artemis says as everyone shakes their head.

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

"He just said he'd try harder to get away with stuff." Said Leo, only to get slapped on the back of the head by Piper.

**Thunder shook the building.**

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

"Yes, because that's such a great option." Apollo says sarcastically.

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

"Sure that's it." Hera says rolling her eyes.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on **_**Tom Sawyer **_**from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

"How could he not read the book?" Athena asks with such intensity most people in the throne room shudder. "He has read the book now mother." Annabeth assured her mother.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

The room went silent. "YOU SENT A FURY AFTER MY SON!" Poseidon shouts. He jumps on Hades only to be held back by every other god in the room.

**Then things got even stranger.**

"How can it get any stranger?" a puzzled Hestia asks as she watches her family try and restrain Poseidon.

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

"What ho? Seriously?" Hermes says through strained teeth as he restrains Poseidon.

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

"He used Anaklusmos in class?" Annabeth says shocked, while Athena tries to figure out why her daughter knows so much about that sea spawn.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

"Wimp." Ares muttered earning a glare from Poseidon and surprising the gods and goddesses, Annabeth. "No one makes fun of Seaweed Brain except for Thalia, Nico, and I." She says as everyone looks at her wearily.

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

"She could drop the honey part, don't you think?" Apollo says. "She never does." Annabeth says as everyone once again looks at Annabeth weirdly.

**And she flew straight at me.**

Everyone tenses except for Annabeth, surprising the younger demigods.

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

"How does that come natural?" Zeus asks. "Well he is the best swordsman in the last 300 years and maybe longer." Annabeth states looking very proud. I am defiantly going to confront her after this chapter. Aphrodite thought.

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. **_**Hisss!**_

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

"And he still lets the mist affect him." Athena says disapprovingly.

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

"Unfortunately not." Piper says sadly.

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Who?" Poseidon asks.

**I said, "Who?"**

Everyone laughs. "Like father like son." Athena says smiling.

**"Our **_**teacher.**_ **Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

"But-" Leo starts when Pier cuts him off. "The mist is affecting them dummy." Piper says like it's obvious. "Oh yeah that stuff that affected me and you and made us think that-"

"That Jason was our friend and not some amnesiac creeper who just popped up on or bus from who knows where? Yup that stuff." At that sentence everyone just started laughing their heads off. Well everyone except Jason who just sat their pouting.

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"Grover seriously needs lying lessons." Annabeth says shaking her head.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

"See he can lie." Hermes says smiling.

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"That's the end of the chapter, who wants to read next?" Annabeth says while smiling. "I will." Piper says about to take the book.

"Wait, I need to take a little break, Annabeth come with me dear." Aphrodite grabs Annabeth's arm and drags her out. "I guess we're having a break" Zeus says and everyone leaves.


	3. Chapter 3

**I do not in any way possible own PJO or HoO or the gods of Olympus. PJO and HoO belong to Rick Riordan while the Olympian gods are owned by the minds of the ancient Greek people who, unless they are immortal, are dead.**

Aphrodite was dragging Annabeth all over Olympus until she got to an area where no one else could hear them. "Sooo…" Aphrodite starts. "What's up between you and Percy?" Annabeth looks at her for a few seconds having a silent debate on what to say.

"Percy?" She finally settles on. "You think that I… Percy?" Annabeth says then laughs. "Oh gods no, Percy's my best friend nothing more, he's like a brother to me." She finishes saying while smiling. Aphrodite looking crestfallen nods then says "We better get back to the throne room." Annabeth nods then Aphrodite leaves. Annabeth slumps to the ground sighing in relief. "Thank gods she believed me." Then quickly gets up and walks to the throne room.

**Line Break**

Piper quietly walks in the throne room, grabs the book, then sits down and gets ready to read. When everyone's there, she starts

"**Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death,"** She starts.

Everyone looks confused except for Annabeth. Her eyes pop wide open then skirt to the floor with sorrow embedded in them, causing many questioning glances.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.**

**This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.**

"That's because they thought she had been." Jason says feeling sorry for percy.

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

Annabeth laughs. "He is psycho."

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

**Almost.**

"I bet 5 drachmas that it's Grover's fault." Annabeth says to Hermes. "You're on."

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

"Thank you." Annabeth says as she collects her 5 drachmas off of Hermes.

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

**Something was going on. Something **_**had **_**happened at the museum.**

"No really Pedro, I thought you'd be smarter than that." Dionysus says.

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

The demigods all shiver remembering their first monster. "What was your first monster Annabeth?" Jason asks. "It was a hellhound." She says with glassy eyes as if remembering something. "Mine and Leo's were anemoi thuellai." Piper says thinking about the Grand Canyon fieldtrip. "What about you Jason? Do you remember yours?" Jason is thinking for quite awhile when he gets it. "My first monster was Thalia." All the demigods just start to laugh. "oh she's so going to kill you Jason." Annabeth says before Piper continues.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

"What are you two fighting about now?" Hephaestus asks Zeus and Poseidon, who both had no idea.

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs.**

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

"Yes, action." Ares says smiling.

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

Annabeth and Athena started laughing while everyone just stared at them blankly. "It means old drunkard." Annabeth explains and then everyone else starts laughing.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

"Wimp." Ares snorts then stops at the glare Annabeth is giving him.

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

"Stupid Gabe. He sure makes a nice statue though." Annabeth mutters, but no one hears her.

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view** **of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange.**

"Oh, I'm so showing this book to Grover." Annabeth says while snickering.

**I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.**

"Aww, he wants to impress Chiron." Leo says smirking.

**I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the **_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology **_**across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,**

"It should be easy for him now, he's met both." Annabeth says not noticing Poseidon pale.

**Or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

"Latin verbs are easy." Jason says without thinking. "Maybe for you sparky, after all you are roman but we're greek. How easy is it speaking greek for you?" Piper asks and Jason shuts up.

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. **_**I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**_

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,** _**"...**_ **worried about Percy, sir."**

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,**

"Sure." Annabeth says while rolling her eyes.

**but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

"Okay, that is a valid point."

**I inched closer.**

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the **_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and **_**they **_**know too—"**

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

Annabeth snorts and everyone looks at her weirdly. "Sorry, it's just the though of Percy ever being mature makes me laugh. Sure he has his moments but… ."

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead line—"**

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

**"Sir, he **_**saw **_**her... ."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

"Ugg I swear if thals were here she'd strangle him for saying that. He didn't fail, how many times do** the **two of us have to tell him." Annabeth says getting exasperated.

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"No!" Hermes shouts. "That's in violation of rule 17. Never give away your position!"

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

"Good, good. Rule 23 never leave evidence behin-"

"HERMES SHUT UP!"

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

"Chiron shouldn't have done that, what if it was a mortal?" Artemis asks and is answered with silence.

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**A few seconds later I heard a slow **_**clop-clop-clop, **_**like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, and then moved on.**

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

"What happened at the winter solstice?" Piper asks receiving silence as an answer.

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

**"Don't remind me."**

"Wait, does he have to go through exams every time he's hiding in a school?" Leo asks and Annabeth nods. "That poor, poor satyr."

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**"Just... tired."**

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression,**

"That won't stop a satyr from reading your emotions." Dionysus says yawning before he picks up a wine magazine and starts ignoring everyone.

**and started getting ready for bed.**

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

"When's he not in danger?" Annabeth sighs and everyone else wonders what trouble Percy will get into in the next few books.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

There's a loud thump and everyone turns around to see Leo passed out on the floor. Piper rushes over to him and checks his heart beat and sighs. "It's okay" she says. "He just feinted at the thought of a 3 hour Latin exam." She finishes and everyone sighs.

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

"This isn't going to end well." Jason mutters.

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

At this Annabeth grumbles and grits her teeth, going unnoticed by the others.

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

"You're not helping Chiron." Hephaestus says while absentmindedly fiddling with some nuts and bolts.

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

"Wim-" Ares starts but stutters to a stop with the glare Annabeth was giving him.

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

"Ugg, Chiron that's not what you're supposed to say." Piper groans along with almost everyone in the throne room (Dionysus wasn't paying attention and didn't really care, Ares thought that the punk was too much of a wimp to gain his respect, and he wasn't Hera's kid so she didn't care).

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were **_**rich **_**juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

All the gods glare at the book making Piper fidget as she was the one holding it.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

"Well that was nice of them." Hestia says smiling.

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

Hestia's smile turns into a disappointed frown. "Never mind what I said."

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had,**

"Stalker" Apollo, Hermes, and Leo chorus only to be slapped by Artemis and Piper. "Got anything to say sparky?" Piper asks and Jason only shakes his head.

**so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"He probably scared him to Hades and back." Annabeth says smiling yet shaking her head.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much **_**did **_**you hear?"**

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

"Oh not much, just the whole thing." Poseidon says smiling.

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"**

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."**

"5 drachmas he doesn't believe him."

"Deal" Hermes says excepting Annabeth's challenge.

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

"Thanks for the drachmas" Annabeth says smiling.

**His ears turned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

"Why fancy script, they all have dyslexia?" Athena asks Dionysus who shrugs. "I like to see them struggle trying to read it."

_**Grover Underwood**_

_**Keeper**_

_**Half-Blood Hill**_

_**Long Island, New York**_

_**(800)**_ _**009-0009**_

**"What's Half—"**

"Idiot" All the girls and goddesses mutter.

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

"That's rude." Demeter comments.

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

"Good" Demeter huffs and mutters something about a poor satyr.

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended **_**me.**_

"He lost sleep over the satyr?" Artemis asks and Annabeth nods. "Percy's one of a kind, his fatal flaw is personal loyalty." _Hmm maybe this boy isn't as ignorant as the others, I shall give him a chance._ Artemis thought.

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

Everyone in the throne room made a face, issuing that they defiantly wouldn't like the smell of rotten eggs.

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

_Why does that sound familiar?_ Hades thought.

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice**_**. **_**There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

"Zeus' eyes pop open as well as many other gods and goddesses eyes, including Poseidon's.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

Finally all the gods get it and Apollo whimpers out "The fates" Making the three new demigods and Annabeth look down sadly.

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

Poseidon pales considerably, which doesn't go unnoticed to the others but none of them know what to say to him. None of them except for Annabeth, who walks straight up to lord Poseidon and whispers in his ear _"the string was not his."_ Colour returns to his face and she returns to her seat.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all." Leo says scaring everyone as they didn't realize he was awake.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

"Oh nooooo! I think like a goat!" Leo says and starts fake sobbing earning a few chuckles.

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

"Not seeing them won't stop them." Athena says gravely.

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

**"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that **_**snip **_**across four lanes of traffic.**

Everyone, even the gods, shudders.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

"How little do they really understand." Aphrodite says shaking her head.

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

Poseidon groans but remembers what Annabeth said.

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

**"Grover?"**

**"Yeah?"**

**"What are you not telling me?"**

"A lot" everyone mutters.

"** He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. **

"Isn't he observant." Athena noted.

**He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

**"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.**

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

"A very big deal." Hades says darkly, earning a few glares.

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

**"What last time?"**

Annabeth shivered _poor Thalia_ she thought.

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

"If anyone says 'stalker' it will be the last thing you do." Piper threatens and all the gods nod their heads so violently that the goddesses were surprised that they didn't fall off.

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

**"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

Again everyone shivered.

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"Alright that's the end of the chapter, who wants to read next?" Piperasks and Leo's hand shoots straight up "oh me, me, pick me."He says jumping up and down. "Hey Jason you want to read?" Piper asks and Jason nods. "Here you go." She says tossing the book to Jason as Leo starts Pouting.

"**Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants"** Jason reads.


	4. Chapter 4

**PJO and HoO both belong to R.R… and since I'm a fourteen year old girl, it looks like I'm not him **

"**Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants," **Jason reads and then everyone just starts to laugh.

"Nice name for the chapter." Hermes says still laughing.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"That wasn't very smart." Athena says. "Or nice." Hestia adds to Athena's comment.

**I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"**

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

"He never should have let Percy get out of sight." Poseidon says with a little bit of worry in his voice.

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"Sally's awesome." Annabeth says while smiling. "And how would you know this?"Athena asks her daughter skeptically. "Sally knows over half the demigods at camp half-blood. She treats them like they were her own kids and always gives us a place to crash when we need one." Annabeth says still smiling and now Poseidon's smiling too.

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the **best people have the rottenest luck.

"She finally got what she deserves, and she's started writing a novel." Annabeth says proudly and all the gods gap in amazement of how amazing this woman is.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

"Why didn't you help her Poseidon?" Artemis asks. "I tried" Poseidon sighs. "She wouldn't let me."

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

"Awwwwww so sweet" Aphrodite coos.

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because **_**it **_**makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"Hmm, she's good. Not a lie but not the truth. She's coming with me for my next theft or prank."

"No Hermes, she's not."

"But uncle P-"

"No"

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

"Understatement of the century." Annabeth mutters and everyone laughs.

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,**

"Jerk" Annabeth muttered. Percy had told her all about his first step-father.

**then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

All the girls and goddesses shudder. "Who could live like that? Aphrodite asks horrified. "Ares" Hephaestus grunts earning laughter from all the boys and gods, and a glare from Ares who was being looked at disgustingly by Aphrodite.

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

"What, that's how he's greeted?" Artemis asks heatedly.

**That was it. No **_**Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**_

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

Again all the girls and goddesses shudder while Aphrodite tries not to through up.

"** He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

"WHAT!" Annabeth yells here eyes looking like a storm of hurricanes ready to attack. All the gods, goddesses, and demigods inch away from her in fear.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

Athena's eyes pop out of her head._ I wonder…_ she thinks.

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

"At least someone there is partially humane." Artemis states in disgust.

**"Am I **_**right**_**?**_**" **_**Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

"Never mind" Artemis states with even more disgust then before.

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

"Ugg, This man needs to be removed off the face of the earth." Artemis says with more disgust on her face then ever.

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

"Sarcasm" Apollo says approvingly. "Nice."

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,**

**or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

"It must be pretty bad to be worse than that." Hermes observed.

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

"Wimp." Ares sneered and Annabeth glares back at him.

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.**

"See, she's a good mother." Hephaestus says pointedly as Hera just looks away and ignores him.

**I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

**"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"Lucky" Hermes, Apollo, and Leo whine just before getting slapped on the back of the head by Artemis and Piper.

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

**I gritted my teeth.**

As was almost everyone in the room.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"I think she's pretty happy with Paul." Annabeth says and Poseidon smiled. Sally deserved someone special.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

"He must have put a pretty good spin to it." Jason says wondering how that girl could ever seem appealing.

**Until that trip to the museum ...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**"No, Mom."**

"Don't lie to your mother." Hera scolds.

**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

"She'd understand" Annabeth mutters.

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

"Probably because he gambled it all away." Piper growled along with many others.

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

"That jerk, no maiden should have to put up with that." Artemis yelled at the book.

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

"He better." Poseidon growled

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

"Bribery, uncle P are you sure I can't take her with me for my next thef-"

"No Hermes, and that's final"

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

"Interrupted it? I believe Perry funded it if I'm not mistaken." Dionysus says surprising everyone that he was actually paying attention.

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

"Do it!" Ares shouts.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"He doesn't even have a brain." Athena says. "I would never bless a being so, so vile with a gift as precious as a brain."

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. **

**She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

"Jerk!" All the girls yell while the guys just shake their heads in disgust.

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

"Like he'd be the one driving." Poseidon growled

**Like I'd be the one driving. **

"Like father, like son." Athena says while everyone else laughs.

**I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. **

"How…" Hades asks. "He must be extremely powerful, and possibly dangerous." Zeus grumbles and Annabeth nods. "Very" she says and as everyone looks at her she smirks. "To his enemies."

**Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Athena and Annabeth shudder violently at that.

**and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

**I loved the place.**

"Of course he did." Demeter says shaking her head.

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

"Duck and cover." Annabeth shouts and everyone except Leo hits the ground and covers their ears with their hands. "Why-" Leo is cut off by a very loud and long shriek from Aphrodite that bursts his ear drums. "Owwwwwwwwwwwwww." Leo complains while holding his very sore ears. "I told you to cover your ears." Annabeth says as she and the others get up off the floor. "You could have worned me a little better" He mutters still massaging his injured ears.

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"What's with the blue food?" Zeus asks. "Blue is my colour!"

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

"Yes, that would be helpful." Zeus mutters as everyone else just laughs at him.

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"No she has a rebellious streak, you have a good streak." Annabeth says and everyone laughs.

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

"Which she is writing in our time probably at this very moment." Annabeth Smiles.

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

Poseidon just smiled, as did Piper and Leo. They used to love it when there mortal parents would talk about their godly parents.

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

Annabeth looks at Poseidon and nods. "They really look alike" She says and everyone looks at Poseidon trying to imagine what Percy looks like.

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

Annabeth just gasped. "He actually got a D+ on his report card? He told me he never got above a D-. That liar. I'm so going to punch him when I see him next." Leo just leaned over to Jason. "And she wonders why he didn't tell her?" Leo asks then got hit in the head twice. Once by Piper, and once by Annabeth who both screamed 'I heard that'. "You're lucky you didn't say anything sparky." Piper says and Jason only nods.

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"I visited him once, a week ago actually." Poseidon says when questioning glances came his way. Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus all looked away when their kids looked at them, feeling guilty.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

Poseidon just looks down when Annabeth speaks up. "He doesn't feel that way anymore lord Poseidon. I promise."

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

"Percy!" Annabeth says angrily and just shakes her head.

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I **_**have **_**to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**

**Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

"None of us are normal, get used to it." Annabeth says while smiling and all the other demigods nod their heads in agreement.

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

Everyone looked at Poseidon. "I don't know if I sent him." He says. "He's only 2 now."

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

Everyone gasped. "Just like Hercules, but he had super strength or something." Leo said in amazement.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

"He's willing to sacrifice his safety, so his mom can enjoy herself?" Hera asks amazed and Annabeth just nods.

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

"It does sound confusing when you put it like that." Jason acknowledges.

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

"Woman using their tears against him." Apollo says shaking his head only to be hit by Artemis. "It works every time." Annabeth mutters to Piper and they both laugh.

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

"Ugg. He has the worst dreams." Annabeth complains.

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

"Hades?" The elder gods ask nervously. "I hope so." He responds.

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, **_**No!**_

"Ha ha, I win." Zeus taunted.

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.**

"How dare you forget uncle P." Apollo fake scolded.

**Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"Well then what was he?" Hermes asks. "If I had to guess" Annabeth starts "It's grover without his pants."

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

_**"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" **_**he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you **_**tell **_**her?"**

"Well obviously not if she just asked him 'what he didn't tell her?'." Dionysus states then goes back to reading the magazine. "Huh?" Leo asked and when no one answered Jason continued.

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—** **and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...**

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: **_**"Percy. **_**Tell me **_**now**_**!"**

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

"Okay, What are you 2 fighting about now?." Hera asks. _Hmm the lightning thief_ Athena wonders.

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. **_**Go**_**!**_**"**_

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"Okay I'm done. Go you want to go next?" Jaso asks and Leo only nods before grabbing the book and opening to the right chapter.

"**My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting."**He begins.


	5. Chapter 5

**I do not own PJO or HoO and I do not pretend to. PJO and HoO belong to Rick Riordan and I respect him as an author and a person. Now on with the chapter.**

"**My Mother Teaches me Bullfighting," **Leo read.

"She knows bullfighting, that's soooo cool" Apollo says jumping up and down like a little kid.

"I didn't know she knew how to bullfight." Poseidon muttered to himself. While Annabeth leans over and whispers to Leo "You better read this chapter fast, for Lord Poseidon's sake." Leo looks confused but he obliges.

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"That's my kind of driving." Ares says approvingly.

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

Hermes and Apollo flash themselves shag-carpet pants and strut around the room yelling "shag-carpet pants, the newest fashion!" Gaining laughs from all the males in the room while the females just shake their heads in embarrassment until Artemis flashes them away.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

"Of course he says that." Annabeth mutters shaking her head.

**Graver's eyes flitted to the rear view mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

**"Watching me?"**

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I **_**am **_**your friend."**

"Stalker… Owww. GEEZ WOMAN STOP SLAPPING ME! Owww." Leo says getting slapped multiple times by Piper, while the others just laugh."

**"Urn ... what **_**are **_**you, exactly?"**

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

"He's not going to like that." Dionysus mutters as he flips the page of the magazine.

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty **_**"Blaa-ha-ha!"**_

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

**"I'm a **_**goat **_**from the waist down."**

"He just said it didn't matter." Poseidon exclaims

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

"Poseidon, must I say it again? Like father, like son." Athena says while the others laugh.

_**"Blaa-ha-ha!**_ **There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a **_**myth, **_**Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

**"So you **_**admit **_**there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

"Wow, so not the right time." Piper says shaking her head.

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"Ugg really Grover." Annabeth says exasperated.

**"Grover!"**

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

"Yes drive faster." Poseidon mutters with a pale face.

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

"Really?" Jason asks. "No imagination yet he can make up magic mushrooms."

"Let's just hope he made them up." Annabeth mutters.

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"Camp" The demigods sigh while Dionysus groans "Camp."

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

"They weren't old ladies Percy, they were the fates." Hades says ominously.

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

"He didn't." Piper just groaned. "He did." Annabeth replied back also groaning.

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in **_**me.**_**"**

**"I meant **_**you, **_**like 'someone.' Not you, **_**you.**_**"**

"Boys!" Artemis says massaging her temples.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

"This woman sees sense; I should have made her a huntress."

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.**

Annabeth just laughs. "Even his mother ignores him when he asks questions. Everyone does it because it annoys him so much."

**"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

"Please. Please. Please." Poseidon continues the chant.

**I didn't know where **_**there **_**was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really **_**hadn't **_**been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"No." Leo says sarcastically. "She just wanted to treat you to lunch and chat about your school work, OF COURSE SHE WANTED TO KILL YOU!" Leo shouts the last part and flinches expecting to be hit, but surprisingly the blow doesn't come.

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. **

Piper chooses right then to slap Leo on the back of the head. "Owww, what was that for." He grumbles at her and she just smiles. "A false sense of security."

**Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling **_**boom!, **_**and our car exploded.**

"What!" Poseidon shouts shocked while Zeus just backs back into his throne, sensing what's going to come next.

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

**Lightning. That was the only explanation. **

"Dad!" Jason says looking disappointed while Poseidon shouts. "How dare you, you could have killed them!" With all the glares Zeus shrinks smaller and smaller into the back of his throne.

**We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

Everyone gasps and more glares are sent Zeus' way.

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

"He knew there was hope by him saying 'food'?" Apollo laughs and Annabeth nods "They're really close, they even have an empathy link." At this everyone goes silent.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

Athena and Artemis eyes pop out of their eye sockets and then look at each other.

I swallowed hard. "Who is—"

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

_**"What?"**_

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

"He is very loyal, but she will not be able to cross." Hestia says sadly.

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

"No." Poseidon whispers sadly and only Annabeth hears him.

**"No!" I shouted. "You **_**are **_**coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he **_**couldn't **_**be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …**

"The minotaur Hades says just in time for Poseidon to turn to him and almost jump across the room to pummel him into nothing but dust, but is stopped by Leo who continues to read.

**"He doesn't want **_**us**_**," my mother told me. "He wants **_**you. **_**Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat,** **at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

"That's because he is part bull seaweed brain." Annabeth whispers.

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

"I really need to get the satyrs to trim that." Dionysus mutters before going back to his magazine.

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of **_**Muscle Man **_**magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear—**

At this everyone bursts out laughing. "Under wear?" Apollo chokes and Leo shakes his head.

**I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms**

"No Apollo." Hermes chokes out while laughing. "Not under wear, bright white fruit of the looms."

—**which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

"Interesting description." Hephaestus mutters allowed.

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

"She is very wise" Athena comments.

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

"Unfortunately they same thing can't be said for her son." Annabeth says while laughing.

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the win dows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

"The minotaur has terrible sight and hearing, right?" Piper asks Annabeth who nods.

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

_**Not a scratch, **_**I remembered Gabe saying.**

**Oops.**

Everyone in the throne room just burst out laughing at that.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

"Ah the title." Demeter nods in understanding.

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

**The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

The throne room is deadly silent, everyone on edge trying to figure out what happens to the poor boy.

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

Everyone realised the breath they didn't even know they were holding.

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

"NO!" Poseidon yells shocked and everyone looks at him with pity.

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

"She is very brave." Artemis says her head down, as with everyone elses.

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.**

"Hades" Poseidon tries to shout, but it comes out as a whimper. Hades just looks down ashamed of what he's done.

**"No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

"You do not want to see Percy when he's angry." Annabeth says. "When he was 15 he took out a full army of monsters on his own." Everyone just stares at her gaping.

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

"He really needs to improve his insults." Hermes says shaking his head and a few people smile.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all.**

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

"Of course it didn't," Annabeth rolled her eyes.

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

"How…" Ares asks with a blank look on his face.

**How did I do that?**

"That's what we want to know." Zeus says, wondering himself how powerful this demigod is.

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

Aphrodite looks like she's about to through up at that statement.

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light,**

"Let's hope that doesn't happen. Young Percy has already lost his mother, he doesn't need to lose his best friend too.

**and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. **

"It's not going to work punk." Ares says smirking.

**The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—**_**snap!**_

Ares just sat in his throne with a look of pure shock on his face.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

Everyone gasped and Annabeth smiled proudly at her Percy.

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

**The monster was gone.**

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

"The young hero is very loyal." Hera notes. "That's not necessarily a good thing." Athena responds to her step mother.

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

'One of your daughters, Aphrodite?" Athena asks and Aphrodite replies "I'm not so sure." While looking at a blushing Annabeth, who was thinking _He thought I was pretty?_

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

All the demigods look at Annabeth with questioning look sand she just looks away while the goddesses continue to chat. "Are you sure she is not one of your daughters Aphrodite?"

"I'm almost positive she's not."

**"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

The throne room is silent. "Annabeth?" Athena asks looking at her blushing daughter. "I simply heard the noise and came outside mother." Annabeth replies, the blush slowly fading. "What about the 'he's the one' comment?"

"It will come up in the book, I promise. I assure you it's not what you're thinking of." Annabeth says while Zeus takes the book and opens to the next chapter.

"**I Play Pinochle With a Horse," **Zeus Reads.


	6. Chapter 6

**I do not own PJO or HoO. They both belong to Rick Riordan who I am not. That's all, so enjoy the chapter.**

"**I Play Pinochle With a Horse," **Zeusread.

"A horse?"

"Chiron you idiot." Piper says slapping Leo on the head.

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

"Is that a demigod dream?"

"I don't think so lord Hermes." Annabeth says while all the others minus Hermes are trying not to laugh.

**I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

Aphrodite squeals. _The young love has already blossomed._

**When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**

**I managed to croak, "What?"**

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would over hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**

"I can't believe I thought he actually knew something." Annabeth says shaking her head. "What do you mean?" Athena asks confusion plastered on her face. "Oh sorry, well Percy isn't the smartest person out there, believe me he's not even close. That's why I call him seaweed brain and our friend calls him kelp head."

**"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."**

**Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.**

Everyone laughed at that. "The most effective way to shut them up." Artemis says smiling, and when all the guys try and protest she makes some food appear and stuffs it in their mouths. When the girls see this they all start laughing.

**The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

"Awwwwww" Aphrodite coos. "He misses you already." When she finishes she looks over to see a very red Annabeth and three demigods rolling on the floor laughing.

**A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them- on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.**

"Oh, way more than a dozen." Hera says smiling at the mention of Argus.

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest.**

"A scorpion?" Leo asks and everyone just shrugs.

**My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.**

**My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.**

**"Careful," a familiar voice said.**

**Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

"It had only been 2 days, but yeah he hadn't slept." Annabeth says slightly lost in memories of her Percy and Grover. Wisely no one asked her questions.

**Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.**

**So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And...**

**"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."**

**Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

**"The Minotaur," I said.**

"That's not a very good idea." Apollo says to the gods and demigods, who were shocked that Apollo actually new something.

**"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"**

"Oh no" Apollo groans."I think like a goat." This earns lots of laughs.

**"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."**

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**

**"My mom. Is she really ..."**

Everyone looks down at this.

**He looked down.**

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

**My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

"Wow, that was deep." Hermes said shocked.

**"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm- I'm the worst satyr in the world."**

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

**"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

**As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.**

**Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.**

Piper quickly slapped Leo in the head. "No, you can't shave a satyrs head." Leo just pouted at scooted away from Piper.

**But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?**

"Oh gods no." Everyone shouts with a disgusted look on their faces.

**No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.**

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid- poor goat, satyr, whatever- looked as if he expected to be hit.**

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

"If only he'd believe us when we tell him." Annabeth says shaking her head.

**"Yes, it was. I was supposed to **_**protect **_**you."**

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

**"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."**

**"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**

**"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies.**

**And not just any cookies- my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

"Aww" all the girls coo.

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

**"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

**"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

**"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

"Oh no" Annabeth says shaking her head. "Satyrs can't have ambrosia or nectar, it'll burn them up."

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."**

**"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Home made."**

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

**"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

"Is that good?" Apollo asks. "For Percy yes," Annabeth starts. "For Nancy, no."

**"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"**

**"What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

"Poor Percy" Hestia sighs sadly.

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architectureâ€"an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arenaâ€"except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

"Pegasi" Annabeth says smiling. "I wonder how blackjack is doing."

"Blackjack?" Everyone asks and she just waves her hand as to say it will come up later.

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

**The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.**

Everyone laughs except for Dionysus who laughs then goes back to his wine magazine muttering something about stupid brats.

**He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.**

Dionysus scoffs from behind his magazine and mutters "You bet I could."

**"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, **

Annabeth huffs and there is a lot of snickers.

**but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron..."**

**He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

**"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

"He just told you he was Chiron and you called him Mr. Brunner." Jason says shaking his head.

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers **_**B**_**.**

All the guys smile while the girls shake their heads.

**"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."**

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

**"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, **_**if **_**there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

At this everyone bursts out laughing. When everyone stops Leo looks over at Piper and stage whispers "Can I shave his head?" Piper just shakes her head as everyone else bursts out laughing once again.

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**

**She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

**She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. **

"What's that supposed to mean?" Said girl huffs and some gods chuckle.

**They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, **

"Oh my gods! He thought your eyes were pretty." Aphrodite squeals as Annabeth smiles, but grows redder then a tomato.

**but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

**She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, **_**You killed a minotaur! **_**or **_**Wow, you're so awesome! **_**or something like that.**

"In your dreams seaweed brain" Annabeth says, still smiling.

**Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

At this chuckles were heard all around the room. "So Annie-" Leo starts, dogging Annabeth's knife because he called her 'Annie'. "How would you know that?" He finishes wiggling his eyebrows. When he finishes the throne room is silent waiting for her answer. "I just helped nurse him back to health-because Chiron asked-and I've been on numerous quests with him." She answers and receives a sigh from Athena and a pout from Aphrodite.

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

**"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

**"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."**

**"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"**

"Names have Power, Pedro. Don't go using them for no reason."

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

"Obviously you haven't changed much." Hermes snorts.

**"Oh. Right. Sorry."**

**"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

**"House call?"**

**"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."**

**I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

**"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

"And now he's going to get a big head." Annabeth says while shaking her head and smiling at the same time.

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first.**

**We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."**

"People have failed?" Piper asks and Annabeth nods sadly. "Thalia failed." She mutters looking at the ground while Jason stares at her in shock.

**"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**

**"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

**"You **_**do **_**know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.**

**"I'm afraid not," I said.**

**"I'm afraid not, **_**sir**_**," he said.**

**"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**

"So were we." Half of the Olympian council answer back while Dionysus just frowns.

**"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all **_**civilized **_**young men to know the rules."**

**"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said.**

**"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Bruner/Chiron" why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"**

**Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."**

**The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.**

**Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, **_**I **_**was his star student. He expected **_**me **_**to have the right answer.**

**"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'**

**"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."**

**"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"**

"Jerk" Almost all of the girls cough at Dionysus who doesn't even seem phased.

**"What?" I asked.**

**He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**

**"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."**

"He didn't see the orientation film? Well that explains his slowness." Annabeth mutters and everyone just stares at her.

**"Orientation film?" I asked.**

**"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know-" he pointed to the horn in the shoe box- "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods- the forces you call the Greek gods- are very much alive."**

**I stared at the others around the table.**

**I waited for somebody to yell, **_**Not! **_**But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**

**"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"**

**"Eh? Oh, all right."**

**Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**

"He eats pop cans?" Piper says with a weirded out expression on her face and Annabeth just nods.

**"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as god."**

**"Well, now," Chiron said. "God- capital **_**G**_**, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."**

**"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"**

**"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**

"SMALLER!?" All the gods boom causing Olympus to shake.

**"Smaller?"**

**"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."**

**"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."**

**And there it was again, distant thunder on a cloud less day.**

**"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**

**"But they're stories," I said. "They're- myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."**

"Science!" Dionysus scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson, what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Dionysus continued "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals- they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come _so-o-o _far. And have they? Listen to this boy and tell me."

**"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody- "what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals- they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come **_**so-o-o **_**far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**

"I state my case"

"Shut up Hermes."

"Okay Athena."

**I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**

**"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that **_**immortal **_**means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**

**I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

**"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**

**"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that some day people would call **_**you **_**a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**

"Harsh." Everyone mutters under their breaths.

**My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."**

**"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."**

**Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."**

**"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"**

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**

Zeus coughs pointedly at Dionysus who seems to have become hard of hearing.

**My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.**

**"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."**

**Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

**"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**

"Old habits, Suuuuure." Zeus mutters, and Dionysus still doesn't 'hear' anything.

**More thunder.**

**Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.**

**Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**

**"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**

**"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time- well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away- the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."**

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**

At his description Dionysus mutters something about ungrateful brats and turns away from everyone else, who are all snickering at his description.

**"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."**

_**"Di immortales, **_**Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."**

**I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**

**"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."**

**Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"**

**"Y-yes, Mr. D."**

**"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

"Ugg, You wish." Aphrodite says grossed out glaring at Dionysus.

**"You're a god."**

**"Yes, child."**

**"A god. You."**

"I know, we couldn't believe it either." Apollo says smirking.

**He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

**"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**

**"No. No, sir."**

**The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**

Everyone just stammers and Dionysus smiles. 'Finally I shall beat that centaur."

**"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**

"Drat"

**I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.**

**"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, **_**again, **_**about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**

**Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."**

**Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."**

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

**"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

"He still cares about that satyr after everything that's happened?"

"Yes mother" Annabeth answers "Percy wouldn't be Percy unless he was extremely loyal"

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**

**"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"**

**"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**

**"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in **_**America**_**?"**

"Well, isn't he slow" Athena states. "I told you" Her daughter says and everyone nods.

**"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."**

**"The what?"**

**"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know- or as I hope you know, since you passed my course- the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps- Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on- but the same forces, the same gods."**

Jason smiled at Rome and the roman names, and when the gods heard their roman names they all temporarily switched to their roman aspects.

**"And then they died."**

There were many "Idiot" that filled the air.

**"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture.**

**People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not- and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**

**It was all too much, especially the fact that **_**I **_**seemed to be included in Chiron's **_**we, **_**as if I were part of some club.**

"No not club, camp." Leo says smiling because for once he was smarter then someone.

**"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... who am I?"**

**Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he was going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**

**"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to 'meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be smores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."**

"Adore is not a strong enough word." Annabeth muttered to many smiling gods and demigods.

**And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.**

**I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**

**"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

"Okay, that's it. Who wants to read next?"

"Wait, can we get some lunch now, I'm Starving!" Leo exaggerates Looking at Zeus. Said god sighs and nods his head, and with that everyone leaves for lunch.


	7. Chapter 7

**I do not own PJO or HoO. They both belong to Rick Riordan, who I am not. That's all.**

When everyone got to the kitchen they gasped. It was a beautiful sterling silver, polished gold, and pure, pure white room. If you looked at the ceiling you could see every constellation known to man, even the huntress found its way up there. Annabeth sighed at the constellation that was once her friend.

The gods had shrunk down so that they could fit in the same table as the demigods. The gods all sat in chairs that looked almost exactly like their thrones in the throne room. Across from the chairs were 4 smaller chairs that resembled four of the gods chairs. Annabeth took the Athena one, Piper took the Aphrodite one, Leo took the Hephaestus one, and Jason took the one that looked like Zeus'.

Zeus snapped his fingers and an extravagant feast appeared in front of them all, with all the foods they love. In front of Annabeth was a stack of blue waffles. She looked down at the waffles and a tear slid down her cheek. Everyone looked at this confused but then remembered the book.

"Percy ate tons of blue food, didn't he?" Piper asks and Annabeth nods smiling. This causes the gods to wonder what's going on. Once again Aphrodite felt a strong surge of love come forward, which caused her much confusion. Annabeth leaned forward and started to eat her waffles as everyone went back to their lunch, but they'd still look over to her every once in a while.

"Sooo" Apollo finally asks. "What's with the blue food?"

"It's a friend's favorite.'' Annabeth replies, looking down. "So, you are friends with the sea spawn?" Athena asks her daughter, confused. "Yes" is all Annabeth has to say. "But-" Athena is cut off by a small near silent sob that only Athena hears from Annabeth and her walking out, surprising everyone.

Athena rises from the table and follows her daughter out of the room. When she finally finds Annabeth she's sitting on a bench lost in thoughts. There's Olympian music playing in the back ground and Athena can't help but wonder what her daughter is hearing.

"What are you listening to?" Athena asks, surprising her daughter and canceling Annabeth's train of thought. "Oh nothing; just a song I danced to one of the last times I was here. In fact I danced to it right here" Annabeth says pointing at the ground in front of the bench she's sitting on.

"What is up between you and the sea spawn- that Percy boy?" Athena says stopping herself from calling the boy a sea spawn. "He's my best friend." Annabeth says smiling. "He always puts everyone before himself, and would go to Hades and back for a friend."

At this Athena is speechless. She'd never heard of a sea spawn acting like this. Maybe it was alright for her daughter to be friends with him.

"Why don't we go to the throne room and continue with the book?" She asks and Annabeth nods. Together the two of them make their way to the throne room where everyone else had already gathered.

"Alright, who wants to read?" Zeus asks and Athena takes the book. "I will." She opens the book to the right page and begins.

**"I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom"** Athena starts.


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey, so a lot of stuff is going on in my life but no matter what I do plan on continuing this, you just might have to wait a little between updates. I promise though that for the first book when I update I will update at least two chapters at a time. Sorry for the bit of a wait.**

**I don't own PJO or HoO they both belong to Rick Riordan. And with that done let's continue with the chapter.**

**I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom** Poseidon reads.

**Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse, we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper-scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving** **Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.**

Everyone started laughing at that. "I so gotta meet this Percy guy, he's hilarious." Hermes laughs.

**We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the Minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's **_**him**_**."**

"Wow" Demeter says. "News must travel fast."

**Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.**

"Can he do a flip?" Leo asks and he is greeted with silence.

**I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane** **on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.**

**"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.**

"Yeah," Jason asks. "What _is_ up there?"

**He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."**

**"Somebody lives there?"**

**"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."**

"How true Chiron, how true." Annabeth mutters.

**I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.**

**"Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."**

**We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.**

**Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."**

**He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.**

"Why don't you just grow eating grapes?" Piper asks. "Trust me" Athena states. "If he did it would get messy."

**I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.**

**I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.**

**"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean ... he was a good protector. Really."**

"He really is loyal, isn't he?" Piper asks subconsciously taking Jason's hand.

**Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable.** **To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."**

**"But he did that!"**

**"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."**

**I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.**

"There he goes, blaming himself for everyone else's inconveniences." Annabeth sighs.

**"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"**

**Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that **_**was **_**Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago.**

**Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."**

**"How old is he?"**

**"Oh, twenty-eight."**

"WHAT!" The three new demigods shout surprised. "Oh he'd be thirty-three by now." Annabeth says to her shocked friends.

**"What! And he's in sixth grade?"**

**"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."**

**"That's horrible."**

**"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."**

**"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"**

"Yes." Annabeth says looking down causing everyone, even Apollo himself god of prophecies, wonder what happened.

**Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"**

**But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word **_**death. **_**The beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.**

"He's not seriously thinking…" Athena asks only to have Annabeth nod.

**"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ..."**

**"Yes, child?"**

**"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"**

**Chiron's expression darkened.**

**"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now ... until we know more ... I would urge you to put that out of your mind."**

"Until we know more?" Hestia asks confused.

**"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"**

**"Come, Percy. Let's see the woods."**

**As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.**

**Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."**

**"Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"**

**"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"**

"Who would bring their own weapons to camp?" Leo asks while Jason and Annabeth raise their hands. "Oh." Leo says embarrassed while everyone else laughs.

**"My own—?"**

**"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."**

**I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much),**

"Why not?" Apollo asks to which Artemis replies with a slap behind the head and an "idiot"

**the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheatre, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.**

**the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheatre, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.**

**Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."**

**Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.**

**"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.**

**Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird.**

**"We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.**

"I don't think that was his point at all." Aphrodite says while Hermes whispers to Apollo. "She can think?" making them both laugh and both have a stiletto thrown at their heads as the goddess they were talking about overheard them.

**Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. **

"Just twelve?" Piper asks confused. "Yes 'just twelve' " Hera says bitterly. "Why would there be any more."

"Umm…" Piper says still confused. "Don't worry, the books will explain everything." Annabeth tells her.

**They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.**

All the gods looked a little offended after this sentence.

**Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory.**

Hephaestus nodded his head and Leo smiled.

**Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass.**

Demeter smiled at hearing this.

**Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at.**

"Yeah baby." Apollo says smiling.

**They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).**

**In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.**

Hestia smiled. 'He saw me.' She thought.

**The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them.**

Zeus smiled realizing how cool his cabin is.

**Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.**

Hera smiled. 'Now that is a nice cabin.'

**"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.**

**"Correct," Chiron said.**

**"Their cabins look empty."**

**Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."**

"Well at least no one ever stays in two." Hera says rudely while glaring at Jason.

**Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.**

**Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?**

**I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.**

**It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway** **and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"**

"It's like you were calling him." Artemis says observantly.

**Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."**

**Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.**

**Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists.**

Ares gives a smirk that says "my cabin is better than yours."

**The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.**

"Clarisse" Annabeth mutters while smiling.

**I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed.**

**"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, **

**I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."**

"PARTY PONIES RULE" Apollo and Hermes shout high fiving each other.

**"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really ..."**

**He smiled down at me. **_**"The **_**Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."**

**"But, shouldn't you be dead?"**

"Idiot." was muttered by a lot of people in that room.

**Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about **_**should **_**be. The truth is, I **_**can't **_**be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."**

**I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.**

"Mine either." most of the males in the room say.

**"Doesn't it ever get boring?"**

**"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."**

**"Why depressing?"**

"I'll give u three guesses." Hades mutters.

**Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.**

**"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."**

**The blonde girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.**

Annabeth sighs. "He knows my name is Annabeth yet he still calls me 'the blond girl'!"

**When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.**

Hermes snorted, while others suppressed smiles.

**I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek.**

"That's not funny." Zeus points out to the laughing Hermes and Apollo.

**There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.**

"That's because it was an architecture book." Annabeth mutters while shaking her head.

**"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"**

"**Yes, sir."**

**"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."**

**Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on **_**old.**_

"Hey!" Hermes states offended.

**The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it... ?**

"A caduceus, right Hermes?" Poseidon asks and Hermes nods.

**A caduceus.**

**Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.**

"Well maybe if all of you claimed your kids it wouldn't look like that." Hermes says slightly mad. "But don't you have to claim your kids?" Piper asks confused. "We don't _have_ to do anything." Hephaestus replies.

**Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.**

**"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner."**

**He galloped away toward the archery range.**

**I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.**

**"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."**

**So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself.**

Cue the laughter.

**There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.**

**Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven."**

**"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.**

**I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."**

**Everybody groaned.**

"Is it that bad?" Demeter asks the demigods. Annabeth nods.

**A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward.**

**"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."**

**The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.**

"Is that Luke?" Hermes asks smiling. Annabeth cringed when hearing his name. "Luke," Jason starts. "Isn't that the guy that's in the picture of you and Thalia?" He gets no response.

**"This is Luke," She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor, for now."**

**"For now?" I asked.**

"How slow can Pedro get?" I'll let you guess who said that.

**"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."**

**I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.**

**I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.**

"You can tell who my kids are." Hermes says then looks at all the other gods giving a silent plea to claim their kids.

**"How long will I be here?" I asked.**

**"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."**

**"How long will that take?"**

**The campers all laughed.**

The gods with kids all look down ashamed.

**"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."**

**"I've already seen it."**

**"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.**

**When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."**

"Oh, last name now. Someone's angry." Aphrodite says smiling.

**"What?"**

**She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."**

**"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy—"**

**"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"**

**"To get killed?"**

**"To fight the Minotaur! **

"Not many anymore." Annabeth mutters under her breath.

**What do you think we train for?"**

**I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was **_**the **_**Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..."**

**"Yes."**

**"Then there's only one."**

**"Yes."**

**"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."**

"Gajillion isn't a word." Athena states.

"**Monsters don't die Percy. They can be killed, but they can't die."**

"That doesn't make sense." Leo says. "Yes it does." Is his reply from almost everyone else in the room.

**"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."**

"See he agrees-"

"Shut up Valdez!" Piper says hitting him in the head.

**"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them arche-types. Eventually, they re-form."**

**I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"**

**"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."**

"How did you know about Alecto?" Hades Asks.

**"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"**

**"You talk in your sleep."**

**"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"**

**Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.**

"Would it?" Leo asks and Hades nods. "Occasionally it could."

**"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."**

**"Look, is there anything we **_**can **_**say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."**

**I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or ... your parent."**

**She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.**

"I should have known." Annabeth says shaking her head.

**"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said.** **"She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."**

**"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."**

**"He's dead. I never knew him."**

Poseidon winced at that.

**Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids.**

**"Your father's not dead, Percy."**

**"How can you say that? You know him?"**

**"No, of course not."**

**"Then how can you say—"**

**"Because I know **_**you.**_ **You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."**

**"You don't know anything about me."**

**"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."**

**"How—"**

**"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."**

"Hey! That's me!" Leo said excitedly. "Shut it Valdez." Jason and Piper say at the same time and they blush. Only then do they regard their intertwined hands. They both turn even more red but they don't let go.

**I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"**

**"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek.** **And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."**

**"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"**

"Most demigods do." Annabeth sighs.

**"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."**

**"Ambrosia and nectar."**

**"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. **

**It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. **

"That sounds… pleasant."

"Shut it Valdez."

"Got it beauty queen."

**Face it. You're a half-blood."**

**A half-blood.**

**I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.**

**Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"**

**I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.**

**"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"**

**"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."**

_**''Erre es korakas!"**_ **Annabeth said, which I somehow under stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded.**

"Way worse." Athena says looking at her smiling daughter.

**"You don't stand a chance."**

**"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. **

**She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"**

**"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."**

**I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"**

**Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"**

**"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."**

"Why the little…" Ares trails off murmuring death threats towards Percy.

**Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbie's, Prissy."**

**"Percy."**

**"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."**

**"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say.**

**"Stay out of it, wise girl."**

**Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.**

**I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.**

"Yeah. Go Clarisse!" Ares yells surprising everyone else in the room.

**I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. **

**She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I **_**could **_**think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.**

At this everyone starts laughing. "Yeah Dionysus," Hermes chokes out. "Why can't you afford classier johns?"

**Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.**

**"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."**

**Her friends snickered.**

**Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.**

"Was not." Annabeth huffs.

**Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. **

"Ewwwww." Aphrodite shrieks when hearing this.

**I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.**

**Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach.**

At this Poseidon starts smirking and the broad grin on Ares face starts to shrink.

**I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.**

Everyone starts laughing except for Ares and Annabeth. "Why aren't you laughing?" Piper asks Annabeth between laughs. Annabeth's reply is for Poseidon to keep reading, which he does.

**I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.**

More laughter occurs.

**She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her.**

**But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.**

Poseidon can barely continue because he is laughing so hard but he pulls himself together.

**As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.**

**The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared.**

Annabeth groans. "Oh," Piper says. "So that's why…"

**She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.**

**I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.**

"So he's water resistant?" Leo asks and Poseidon nods. "That is so cool. It's like how I'm fire resistant except, with water."

**I stood up, my legs shaky.**

**Annabeth said, "How did you ..."**

**"I don't know."**

**We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. **

"But she always-"

"Poor Clarisse, I feel bad that that happened to her." Piper says covering Leo's mouth with her hand, saving him from an angry war god.

**She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."**

**I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."**

All the guys (Except for Ares) start laughing while the girls try to suppress their smiles.

**Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.**

**Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.**

"A little bit of both." Annabeth replies when questioning glances come her way.

"**What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"**

**"I'm thinking," She said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."**

"Alright that's the end of the chapter, who wants to read next?" Poseidon asks. "Oh, I guess I will." Hades sighs taking the book from his brother.

"My Dinner goes Up in Smoke" Hades reads.


	9. Chapter 9

**I still don't own PJO or HoO. They both belong to Rick Riordan.**

"**My Dinner goes up in Smoke." **Hades reads.

**Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth, who was still pretty much dripping wet.**

"That was so not fun." Annabeth mutters.

**She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man), **

"That's Pan, not a 'goat-man'!" Hermes huffs thinking about his son.

"Pam? The cooking spray?" Leo asks

"No you idiot." Piper slaps him. "P-A-N. The god of the wild."

**and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.**

**Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.**

**"I've got training to do," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."**

"Oh someone's giving him the cold shoulder."

"Shut it Apollo."

"Whatever you say sis."

"Don't call me sis."

"Would you two shut up." Zeus thundered.

**"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."**

**"Whatever."**

"He's trying to be sympathetic, daughter of Athena." Hestia says

"I know." Annabeth says, her eyes trained on the floor.

**"It wasn't my fault."**

**She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it **_**was **_**my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.**

"That's my dream." Leo says dreamily.

**"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.**

**"Who?"**

**"Not who. What.** **The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."**

"I don't think Rachel would like that description." Piper says to Annabeth.

"This was before Rachel."

**I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.**

**I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below.**

**They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.**

"Well I guess they sort of are." Demeter says thoughtfully.

**I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.**

**"Don't encourage them," Annabeth warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."**

"Someone's jealous." Aphrodite squeals and Jason looks at Piper. "How are you related to her?" Piper just shakes her head. "I ask myself the same question every morning with my siblings."

**"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."**

**Annabeth frowned. "Don't you get it, Percy? You **_**are **_**home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."**

**"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"**

"So now we're disturbed?" Piper asked. She looked around the group. "Maybe Leo, but us?"

"HEY," Leo shouted but was ignored.

**"I mean **_**not human. **_**Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."**

**"Half-human and half-what?"**

"Did he seriously ask that?" Hephaestus asks shaking his head.

**"I think you know."**

**I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.**

**"God," I said. "Half-god."**

**Annabeth nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Percy. He's one of the Olympians."**

**"That's ... crazy."**

**"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"**

All the gods, except for the maiden goddesses look away from the demigods blushing. "Not all of us do that vulgar stuff." Hera says stiffly.

**"But those are just—" I almost said **_**myths **_**again. Then I remembered Chiron's warning that in two thousand years, **_**I **_**might be considered a myth.**

"It went just a little quicker then Chiron assumed." Hephaestus says while some sort of doohickey absent mindedly.

**"But if all the kids here are half-gods—"**

**"Demigods," Annabeth said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."**

**"Then who's your dad?"**

Athena smiles.

**Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.**

Athena's smile disappears after hearing this and she looks questioningly at Annabeth.

**"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."**

**"He's human."**

**"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"**

**"Who's your mom, then?"**

**"Cabin six."**

**"Meaning?"**

**Annabeth straightened. "Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."**

**Okay, I thought. Why not?**

"What's that supposed to mean?" Both mother and daughter ask sceptically.

**"And my dad?"**

**"Undetermined," Annabeth said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."**

**"Except my mother. She knew."**

**"Maybe not, Percy. Gods don't always reveal their identities."**

"I did," Poseidon says smiling.

"Which you shouldn't have," Zeus shot back.

"Dad," Jason says. "From what Thalia told me, you told mom who you were and it broke her. At least Percy's mom could handle it."

Zeus looked down ashamed.

**"My dad would have. He loved her."**

**Annabeth gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble.**

"I'm glad I didn't say anything." Annabeth says smiling at Poseidon, earning a return smile from Poseidon and a confused frown from Athena.

**"Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens."**

**"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"**

The newer demigods look confused while Annabeth looks sad and the gods look ashamed.

**Annabeth ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Percy. They ignore us."**

"That's horrible." Piper exclaimed.

**I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But gods should behave better.**

"Yeah, well sometimes we're busy Pedro, you ever think about that?"

**"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"**

**"It depends," Annabeth said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter,** **you're probably not a real powerful force. **

"Hey!" Demeter, Aphrodite, and Piper exclaim.

"I apologize." Annabeth says truthfully. "Katie, Silena, and you piper, have proved me wrong."

**The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble—about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. **

"So how'd we make it until we were fifteen?" Piper asks gesturing to her, Leo, and Jason.

"Well technically I started camp when I was two." Jason states.

"Oh shut up sparky."

**A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."**

**"So monsters can't get in here?"**

**Annabeth shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."**

**"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"**

Annabeth looks down obviously thinking of something.

**"Practice fights. Practical jokes."**

**"Practical jokes?"**

"Hermes cabin." The demigods mutter and Hermes smiles.

**"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."**

**"So ... you're a year-rounder?"**

**Annabeth nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Annabeth's also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.**

**"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."**

Athena looks at her daughter wondering why she would come so early.

**"Why did you come so young?"**

"Yeah," Piper says. "I remember you telling me that. Why did you come so early?"

Annabeth doesn't answer.

**She twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."**

**"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"**

**"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ..."**

**"Unless?"**

**"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time …"**

"It didn't go so well." Annabeth sighs.

**Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.**

**"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff—"**

**"Ambrosia."**

**"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."**

**Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "So you **_**do **_**know something?"**

**"Well... no. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"**

**She clenched her fists.**

**"I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so **_**normal**_**."**

"You were on Olympus before?" Leo asks amazed. For an answer Annabeth asks Hades to keep reading.

**"You've been to Olympus?"**

**"Some of us year-rounders—Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others—we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."**

"That's so cool." Leo says grinning ear from ear.

**"But... how did you get there?"**

**"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already.**

"Wait, we're on top of the empire state building?" Jason asks and the gods nod. The three newer demigods run over to the edge to see if that's true. Five minutes later they all came back completely shocked. "How could I have never noticed?" Piper mutters to herself.

**"You **_**are **_**a New Yorker, right?"**

**"Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.**

Annabeth shakes her head at that.

**"Right after we visited," Annabeth continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. **

_Stolen…_ Athena thinks. _Something important… The Lightning Thief…_ Athena gasps. She had figured out what was stolen.

"Athena, what is it?" Zeus asks. Athena looks at the demigods. Jason, Piper, and Leo look confused, just like the gods. Annabeth is shaking her head, a silent warning telling Athena not to tell.

"It was nothing Zeus; I just thought I saw a spider." Everyone nods in understanding. Ever since the arcane story Athena hated spiders.

**And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping ... I mean— Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares.**

**And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon.**

The new demigods all start laughing, and when the gods ask they dismiss it saying that 'it's nothing.'

**But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."**

**I shook my head. I wished I could help her, **

"Awwwwww." Aphrodite sighs. "He's her knight in shining armor. Annabeth was so red she looked like a tomato.

**but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.**

"Typical man." Artemis mutters shaking her head.

**"I've got to get a quest," Annabeth muttered to herself. "I'm **_**not **_**too young. If they would just tell me the problem …"**

"You're twelve, that's too young for a quest. Maybe now that your seventeen I'll give you a quest." Athena tells her daughter. "I hate to break it to you mom." Annabeth says to her mom. "But I've been on three quests, there has been a quest that I had to do with, and I helped fight in the war caused by the great prophecy." Athena just started gaping at her daughter.

**I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Annabeth must've heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.**

Annabeth smiled sheepishly. That was exactly what she had been doing.

**Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. **

"Those kids are my kids." Hermes says looking pointedly at the other gods.

**Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.**

**The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.**

Hermes smiled. Luke was his pride and joy. Maybe what May saw was false. Maybe everything would be okay.

**"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."**

**I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.**

"My kids would never lie about stealing something." Hermes says sternly.

**I said, "Thanks."**

**"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"**

**"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."**

**"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."**

Hermes frowned. _Why was Luke acting that way?_

**The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.**

**"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.**

**He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, **

_He better not try anything. _Annabeth thinks coldly. _Luke never was the same after his quest._

**but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."**

**"The wing-footed messenger guy."**

"Nice description." Hermes and Ares both say, those Hermes is being sarcastic and Ares is laughing.

**"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."**

**I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.**

_I bet he did mean to._ Annabeth thought.

**"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.**

**"Once."**

**I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.**

Hermes looked troubled at that thought. "Don't worry." Annabeth tells him. "It doesn't have anything to do with it.

**Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."**

"We may all be family, but that doesn't stop love from blooming." Aphrodite says smiling as she looks at Piper who has her head resting on Jason's shoulder as the sit side by side holding hands.

**He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him—even if he was a counselor—should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.**

"Oh yeah." Annabeth mutters. "Just ignore the girl who healed you and nursed you back to health."

**I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth ... twice, she said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"**

**Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."**

"Hey!" Apollo huffed while others (Mostly the demigods) agree.

**"What do you mean?"**

**His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. **

"He was the last person that had a quest" Hades says in understanding.

**Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy + the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until...somebody special came to the camp."**

**"Somebody special?"**

"Somebody very special." Leo says jokingly and receives two slaps. One from Annabeth and the other from Piper.

**"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."**

**The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.**

"Perks of being my son." Poseidon gloats.

**Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"**

**The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.**

Artemis smiled. Her cabin was truly amazing.

**We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods— and when I say out of the woods, I mean **_**straight **_**out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.**

Annabeth smiled. "Her names Maple, she's really sweat."

**In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.**

**At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.**

"Oh, T.M.I." Both Apollo and Hermes say at the exact same time in girly voices.

**I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.**

**Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.**

Annabeth smiles thinking about her siblings.

**Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.**

Ares smiled at that.

**Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"**

**Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"**

**Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want—non-alcoholic, of course."**

**I said, "Cherry Coke."**

**The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.**

**Then I had an idea. "**_**Blue **_**Cherry Coke."**

"Still with the blue food?" Leo asks. "I doubt he will ever stop eating blue food." Annabeth sighs, but she has a smile on her face while she does it.

**The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.**

**I took a cautious sip. Perfect.**

**I drank a toast to my mother.**

**She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...**

"Come down, little hero. Come down." Hades says smiling creepily. Demeter hits him in the arm hard. "Stop being such a creep."

**"Here you go, Percy," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.**

**I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion.**

**I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.**

Annabeth rolls her eyes.

**"Come on," Luke told me.**

**As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest straw berry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.**

**Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."**

**"You're kidding."**

"No, it really does smell good." Apollo says nodding his head and smiling.

**His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.**

**Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."**

**I was next.**

**I wished I knew what god's name to say.**

Poseidon smiled at that.

**Finally, I made a silent plea. **_**Whoever you are, tell me. Please.**_

_I will son. _Poseidon thought.

**I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.**

**When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.**

**It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.**

"Ares tried once. He lasted a week before he ended up in my hospital." Apollo says still smiling.

**When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.**

**Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats.**

"Is that how you treat our kids?" Athena says sounding disgusted.

**Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."**

**A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.**

"Woo." Ares himself cheers.

**"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson."**

Poseidon glares at Dionysus.

**Chiron murmured something.**

**"Er, Percy Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."**

**Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along.**

"When don't they lead?" Leo asks, though he doesn't get an answer.

**We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.**

Annabeth smiles. Camp is like a second home to her, just like how Chiron is like her second father.

**Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.**

**My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.**

Hera smiled. _Sally was a good mother._

**When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.**

**That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.**

**I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.**

"That doesn't sound good." Poseidon says worrying. "I'm sure he'll be fine." Hestia says, smiling reassuringly.

"Alright, who wants to read next?" Hades asks. Hephaestus sighs. "I suppose I could." He takes the book and opens up to the right chapter.

"**We Capture a Flag," **Hephaestus read.


	10. Chapter 10

**I do not own PJO or HoO. They both belong to Rick Riordan.**

"**We Capture a Flag," **Hephaestus read.

"Woo!" Ares shouted. "Go Ares cabin!" Annabeth didn't bother to tell him that didn't win.

**The next few days I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that I was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.**

"That is normal in our world." Annabeth mutters.

**Each morning I took Ancient Greek from Annabeth, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. **

"Well I don't think he would like it if we talked about him in the past tense when he's still living." Hephaestus muttered. All the gods nodded.

**I discovered Annabeth was right **

"When's she not?" Piper asks and Annabeth smiles.

**about my dyslexia: Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English.**

"That's the same as me with Latin." Jason says.

**After a couple of mornings, I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much headache.**

**The rest of the day, I'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something I was good at. Chiron tried to teach me archery,** **but we found out pretty quick I wasn't any good with a bow and arrow.**

Annabeth laughed and the gods looked puzzled. "Doesn't Poseidon suck at archery?" Hermes asks.

**He didn't complain, even when he had to de-snag a stray arrow out of his tail.**

At this everyone in the throne room was laughing.

**Foot racing? No good either. The wood-nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. **

**But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.**

Leo laughed. "I'd never thought of it that way."

**And wrestling? Forget it. Every time I got on the mat, Clarisse would pulverize me.**

**"There's more where that came from, punk," she'd mumble in my ear.**

**The only thing I really excelled at was canoeing,**

"Figures." All of the gods mutter.

**and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.**

**I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching me, trying to decide who my dad was, but they weren't having an easy time of it. I wasn't as strong as the Ares kids, **

"Thank the gods." Ares mumbled.

Apollo grinned. "You're welcome."

Artemis rolled her eyes and smacked her brother on the head with her bow.

**or as good at archery as the Apollo kids.**

"My kids are awesome."

**I didn't have Hephaestus's skill with metalwork** **or—gods forbid— Dionysus's way with vine plants. **

"Well," Dionysus said. "The feeling's mutual Perry."

**Luke told me I might be a child of Hermes, a kind of jack-of-all-trades, master of none. **

**But I got the feeling he was just trying to make me feel better. He really didn't know what to make of me either.**

"No one did." Annabeth says remembering how puzzled everyone was.

**Despite all that, I liked camp. I got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. **

"So I'm not the only one that hears that?" Leo asks only to be ignored.

**I would eat dinner with cabin eleven, scrape part of my meal into the fire, and try to feel some connection to my real dad. Nothing came.**

**Just that warm feeling I'd always had, like the memory of his smile. I tried not to think too much about my mom, but I kept wondering: if gods and monsters were real, if all this magical stuff was possible, surely there was some way to save her, to bring her back...**

"Don't even try." Hades says.

**I started to understand Luke's bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Hermes.**

Hermes and Poseidon both look down guiltily.

**So okay, maybe gods had important things to do.**

**But couldn't they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? **

**Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. **

**Why couldn't my dad, whoever he was, make a phone appear?**

Now all the gods with children look down guiltily.

**Thursday afternoon, three days after I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Everybody from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor.**

**We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I guess I did okay. At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good.**

**The problem was, I couldn't find a blade that felt right in my hands. Either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long.**

"Only riptide works for him." Annabeth mutters and everyone looks at her. Athena wonders why her daughter knows so much about the sea spawn.

**Luke tried his best to fix me up, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for me.**

**We moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would be my partner, since this was my first time.**

**"Good luck," one of the campers told me. "Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."**

"Not anymore." Annabeth mutters and the gods look at her skeptically.

**"Maybe he'll go easy on me," I said.**

**The camper snorted.**

**Luke showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised. "Keep your guard up, Percy," he'd say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade. "No, not that far up!" **_**Whap! **_**"Lunge!" **_**Whap! **_**"Now, back!" **_**Whap!**_

**By the time he called a break, I was soaked in sweat. Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Luke poured ice water on his head, which looked like such a good idea, I did the same.**

Hermes grimaces at that while Poseidon smiles. "Now we'll see who the better swordsman is."

**Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. The sword didn't feel so awkward.**

**"Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Percy doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo."**

"Why do I think demo means him beating up Percy?" Zeus asks.

**Great, I thought. Let's all watch Percy get pounded.**

**The Hermes guys gathered around. They were suppressing smiles. I figured they'd been in my shoes before and couldn't wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag. He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.**

**"This is difficult," he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique."**

Annabeth snorted to everyone's confusion.

**He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of my hand.**

**"Now in real time," he said, after I'd retrieved my weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?"**

**I nodded, and Luke came after me. Somehow, I kept him from getting a shot at the hilt of my sword. My senses opened up. I saw his attacks coming. I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Luke deflected it easily, but I saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to press me with more force.**

Everyone is leaning forward in anticipation, wondering what will happen.

**The sword grew heavy in my hand. The balance wasn't right.**

**I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Luke took me down, so I figured, What the heck?**

**I tried the disarming maneuver.**

"Not gonna work." Ares mutters.

**My blade hit the base of Luke's and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust.**

**Luke's sword rattled against the stones.**

"What was that Ares?" Aphrodite asks him.

**The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest.**

'He could have ended it there' Annabeth thinks and sighs.

**The other campers were silent.**

**I lowered my sword. "Um, sorry."**

"What is he apologizing for?" Hera asks.

**For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.**

**"Sorry?" His scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"**

**I didn't want to. The short burst of manic energy had completely abandoned me. But Luke insisted.**

**This time, there was no contest. The moment our swords connected, Luke hit my hilt and sent my weapon skidding across the floor.**

**After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"**

"I wonder what he could do with a balanced sword." Artemis says thoughtfully.

**Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised at me with an entirely new interest. "Maybe," he said. "But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword..."**

**Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Grover at the lake, resting from a near-death experience on the climbing wall.**

**Grover had scampered to the top like a mountain goat, but the lava had almost gotten me. My shirt had smoking holes in it. The hairs had been singed off my forearms.**

**We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got up the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation had gone with Mr. D.**

Everyone perked up wondering what had happened.

**His face turned a sickly shade of yellow.**

**"Fine," he said. "Just great."**

**"So your career's still on track?"**

**He glanced at me nervously. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"**

"What's a searchers licence?" Leo asks. Nobody answers. "Fine, just ignore the fire user."

**"Well... no." I had no idea what a searcher's license was, but it didn't seem like the right time to ask.** **"He just said you had big plans, you know ... and that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?"**

**Grover looked down at the naiads. "Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."**

"Unforunately there is not a very high chance of that happening." Hestia says smilingsadly.

**My spirits lifted. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"**

_**"Blaa-ha-ha!**_ **He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... and even if you did, why would you want **_**me **_**along?"**

**"Of course I'd want you along!"**

"He really is loyal." Demeter says smiling.

**Grover stared glumly into the water. "Basket-weaving ... Must be nice to have a useful skill."**

**I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.**

**"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis," he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."**

Artemis shrugged. "That's kind of true but my hunters do need somewhere to stay when they visit."

**"Yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"**

**Grover tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject. "No. One of them, number two, is Hera's," he said. "That's another honorary thing. She's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals.**

"No married person should." She says glaring at all the gods that are married and havedemigod children.

**That's her husband's job. **

Zeus huffs and Jason smile awkwardly.

**When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos."**

**"Zeus, Poseidon, Hades."**

**"Right. You know. After the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what."**

**"Zeus got the sky," I remembered. "Poseidon the sea, Hades the Underworld."**

**"Uh-huh."**

**"But Hades doesn't have a cabin here."**

"I should." Hades mutters.

**"No. He doesn't have a throne on Olympus, either. **

**He sort of does his own thing down in the Underworld. If he did have a cabin here ..." Grover shuddered. "Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. Let's leave it at that."**

**"But Zeus and Poseidon—they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?"**

"Or at least they should be empty." Athena says pointedly at Poseidon and Zeus.

**Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably.**

**"About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes.**

**Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx."**

**Thunder boomed.**

As it did in the throne room.

**I said, "That's the most serious oath you can make."**

**Grover nodded.**

**"And the brothers kept their word—no kids?"**

"Here comes Thalia's story." Annabeth says looking down sadly. Everyone else looksconfused. 'Thalia's story?'

**Grover's face darkened. "Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon.**

**There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo—he just couldn't help himself. **

**When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia... well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he's immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter."**

"What happened?" Jason says with a little worry in his voice.

**"But that isn't fair. It wasn't the little girl's fault."**

**Grover hesitated. "Percy, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods.** **They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to torment Thalia. **

"No" Zeus whimpers then turns to Hades. "You shall pay for that."

**A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do.**

Fear is shown in both Zeus and Jason's eyes.

**He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."**

**He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I'd fought the minotaur. "All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a horde of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. **

Zeus looks down sadly, Hades feels sort of bad for sending monsters to torment Thalia, andJason is confused. Thalia is fine in their time period, so what happens here?

**She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died,**

"Thalia died?" Jason asks with shock and worry written on his face. Annabeth only nods.

**Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."**

Everyone is silent, feeling bad for the daughter of Zeus. The trio of new demigods areconfused though. They had just seen Thalia a week ago.

**I stared at the pine in the distance.**

**The story made me feel hollow, and guilty too. A girl my age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn't seem like much.**

**I wondered, if I'd acted differently, could I have saved my mother?**

"Probably not." Poseidon says while looking at his brother worriedly.

**"Grover," I said, "Have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?"**

**"Sometimes," he said. "Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini."**

**"And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?"**

**"No. Never. Orpheus came close... . Percy, you're not seriously thinking—"**

**"No," I lied.**

"I like your son Poseidon." Hermes says smiling.

**"I was just wondering. So ... a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?"**

**Grover studied me warily. I hadn't persuaded him that I'd really dropped the Underworld idea. "Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."**

**"And you found me. Chiron said you thought I might be something special."**

**Grover looked as if I'd just led him into a trap. "I didn't... Oh, listen, don't think like that. If you **_**were**_—**you know—you'd never **_**ever **_**be allowed a quest, and I'd never get my license. You're probably a child of Hermes. **

"Nope, sorry." Hermes says smiling.

**Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don't worry, okay?"**

"I'm no Annabeth, but isn't Nemesis a goddess?" Leo asks and the gods nod, thoughAthena and Annabeth both have smiles on their faces.

**I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than me.**

**That night after dinner, there was a lot more excitement than usual.**

**At last, it was time for capture the flag.**

"Finally." Ares says exasperated.

**When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.**

**Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. **

**From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar's head.**

**I turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, "Those are the flags?"**

**"Yeah."**

**"Ares and Athena always lead the teams?"**

**"Not always," he said. "But often."**

**"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do— repaint the flag?"**

**He grinned. "You'll see. First we have to get one."**

**"Whose side are we on?"**

**He gave me a sly look, as if he knew something I didn't. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight. **

Annabeth shivers at that and looks down ignoring the questioning looks she's getting.

**"We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And **_**you **_**are going to help."**

**The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded—shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities—in order to win support.**

Athena nods, liking what her daughter did.

**Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. From what I'd seen, Dionysus's kids were actually good athletes, but there were only two of them. Demeter's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff but they weren't very aggressive. Aphrodite's sons and daughters I wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped. **

"Which is basically what Aphrodite does most of the time." Hermes said getting a slap from said goddess.

**Hephaestus's kids weren't pretty, and there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem.**

Hephaestus smiles at that but Leo frowns. "I'm pretty, right Jason. I'm very pretty." Piperand Annabeth are trying not to laugh as Jason pushes Leo away.

"Yes Leo, you are very pretty."

**That, of course, left Ares's cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.**

Many of the gods and the trio of new demigods shudder under the evil smile Ares is giving,but Annabeth doesn't even flinch.

**Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.**

**"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"**

**He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhide shields coated in metal.**

**"Whoa," I said. "We're really supposed to use these?"**

"What else would you use?" Ares asks confused.

**Luke looked at me as if I were crazy. "Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here—Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol."**

**My shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a million pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine, but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Athena's side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes.**

**Annabeth yelled, "Blue team, forward!"**

**We cheered and shook our swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at us as they headed off toward the north.**

**I managed to catch up with Annabeth without tripping over my equipment. "Hey."**

**She kept marching.**

"Oh, cold shoulder." Apollo says only to get hit by Artemis.

**"So what's the plan?" I asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"**

**Her hand drifted toward her pocket, as if she were afraid I'd stolen something.**

"What?" Annabeth says after getting glances from the Olympians. "I thought he mighthave been a son of Hermes."

**"Just watch Clarisse's spear," she said. "You don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?"**

**"Border patrol, whatever that means."**

**"It's easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan."**

"Is that your catch phrase or something? You always say it." Leo asks and Piper and Jasonnod. Annabeth just rolls her eyes and asks Hephaestus to continue.

**She pushed ahead, leaving me in the dust.**

**"Okay," I mumbled. "Glad you wanted me on your team."**

'Oh, cold… never mind Artemis. I'm good." Apollo says ducking from Artemis' slap.

**It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view**_**. **_**Annabeth stationed me next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then she and the rest of the team scattered into the trees.**

**Standing there alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot. The bronze sword, like all the swords I'd tried so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on my hand like a bowling ball.**

**There was no way anybody would actually attack me, would they? I mean, Olympus had to have liability issues, right?**

"Suuuuure…" Hermes says, none of the gods are looking the demigods in the eye.

**Far away, the conch horn blew. I heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past me like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.**

**Great, I thought. I'll miss all the fun, as usual.**

**Then I heard a sound that sent a chill up my spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by.**

**I raised my shield instinctively; I had the feeling something was stalking me.**

"He should have told us earlier." Annabeth sighs.

**Then the growling stopped. I felt the presence retreating.**

**On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.**

**"Cream the punk!" Clarisse screamed.**

**Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords—not that that made me feel any better.**

**They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. I could run. Or I could defend myself against half the Ares cabin.**

**I managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid as the Minotaur. **

Ares smiles. "My kids are gonna mess your kid up." Ares says to Poseidon.

**They surrounded me, and Clarisse thrust at me with her spear. My shield deflected the point, but I felt a painful tingling all over my body. My hair stood on end. My shield arm went numb, and the air burned.**

**Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric. **

**I fell back.**

**Another Ares guy slammed me in the chest with the butt of his sword and I hit the dirt.**

**They could've kicked me into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.**

"Hurt him! Hurt him! Hurt him! Hur-" Ares chants but is cut off when salt water issprayed all over him.

**"Give him a haircut," Clarisse said. "Grab his hair."**

**I managed to get to my feet. I raised my sword, but Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear as sparks flew. Now both my arms felt numb.**

**"Oh, wow," Clarisse said. "I'm scared of this guy. Really scared."**

**"The flag is that way," I told her. **

Athena and Annabeth simultaneously groan and roll their eyes. "Whoa, that's cool." Hermes says. "Do it again."

**I wanted to sound angry, but I was afraid it didn't come out that way.**

**"Yeah," one of her siblings said. "But see, we don't care about the flag. We care about a guy who made our cabin look stupid."**

"NO, get the flag!" Ares shouts.

**"You do that without my help," I told them. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say.**

"Ya think?" Piper says sarcastically.

**Two of them came at me. I backed up toward the creek, tried to raise my shield, but Clarisse was too fast. Her spear stuck me straight in the ribs. If I hadn't been wearing an armored breastplate, I would've been shish-kebabbed. **

**As it was, the electric point just about shocked my teeth out of my mouth. One of her cabinmates slashed his sword across my arm, leaving a good-size cut.**

**Seeing my own blood made me dizzy—warm and cold at the same time.**

**"No maiming," I managed to say.**

**"Oops," the guy said. "Guess I lost my dessert privilege."**

"That's the punishment?" An outraged Athena asks Dionysus and he only shrugs.

**He pushed me into the creek and I landed with a splash.**

Ares' smile fades and Poseidon's grows.

**They all laughed. I figured as soon as they were through being amused, I would die. But then something happened. The water seemed to wake up my senses, as if I'd just had a bag of my mom's double-espresso jelly beans.**

**Clarisse and her cabinmates came into the creek to get me, but I stood to meet them. I knew what to do. I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.**

"Woo." Hermes and Apollo shout only to both get slapped by Artemis.

**Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at me. I slammed one in the face with my shield and used my sword to shear off the other guy's horsehair plume. Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn't look really anxious to attack, but Clarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft between the edge of my shield and my sword, and I snapped it like a twig.**

"Ah!" Ares screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"

**"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"**

"Wow." Poseidon says and everyone else just nods.

**She probably would've said worse, but I smacked her between the eyes with my sword-butt and sent her stumbling backward out of the creek.**

**Then I heard yelling, elated screams, and I saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids. **

"Brilliant!" Athena Shouts praising her daughter. Annabeth smiles, but everyone elselooks confused.

**The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse.**

**"A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."**

**They staggered after Luke, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.**

**The game was over. We'd won.**

Ares groans and Poseidon smiles.

**I was about to join the celebration when Annabeth's voice, right next to me in the creek, said, "Not bad, hero."**

**I looked, but she wasn't there.**

**"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" she asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.**

**I felt myself getting angry. I wasn't even fazed by the fact that she'd just been invisible. "You set me up," I said. "You put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out."**

Realization dawns in everyone's eyes.

**Annabeth shrugged. "I told you. Athena always, always has a plan."**

**"A plan to get me pulverized."**

"Then it's a good plan." Athena says smiling.

**"I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but ..." She shrugged. "You didn't need help."**

**Then she noticed my wounded arm. "How did you do that?"**

**"Sword cut," I said. "What do you think?"**

**"No. It **_**was **_**a sword cut. Look at it."**

Leo raised an eyebrow. "The water heals him."

Poseidon nodded.

**The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As I watched, it turned into a small scar, and disappeared.**

**"I—I don't get it," I said.**

**Annabeth was thinking hard.**

**I could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at my feet, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and said, "Step out of the water, Percy."**

**"What—"**

**"Just do it."**

"Demanding much." Leo whispers to Jason, but before Jason can respond a dagger impales itself in the floor one centimetre away from Leo's thigh. Leo yelps then looks over at Annabeth who is talking to Piper, but the sheath for her dagger is empty. "I think this is yours.' Leo mutters giving Annabeth her dagger back. She smiles sweetly but it's all an act.

**I came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. My arms started to go numb again. My adrenaline rush left me. I almost fell over, but Annabeth steadied me.**

**"Oh, Styx," she cursed. "This is **_**not **_**good. I didn't want... I assumed it would be Zeus..."**

Zeus huffs.

**Before I could ask what she meant, I heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.**

**The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which I would realize, only later, I had understood perfectly: "**_**Stand ready**_**!**_** My bow**_**!"**

**Annabeth drew her sword.**

**There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.**

The demigods shiver and Hades looks confused. 'What is a hellhound doing their?' "That's not Mrs. O'Leary is it?" Leo asks and Annabeth shakes her head. 'Mrs. O'Leary?' all the gods think.

**It was looking straight at me.**

**Nobody moved except Annabeth, who yelled, "Percy, run!"**

**She tried to step in front of me, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her—an enormous shadow with teeth—and just as it hit me, as I stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through my armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hounds neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at my feet.**

Poseidon let out a sigh, glad his son was safe.

**By some miracle, I was still alive. I didn't want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor. My chest felt warm and wet, and I knew I was badly cut. Another second, and the monster would've turned me into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.**

**Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.**

_**"Di immortales!"**_ **Annabeth said. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't... they're not supposed to..."**

**"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."**

The mood darkens. 'Luke' Annabeth thinks.

**Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.**

**Clarisse yelled, "It's all Percy's fault! Percy summoned it!"**

"Seriously?" Poseidon asks Ares who is being very quiet.

**"Be quiet, child," Chiron told her.**

**We watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.**

**"You're wounded," Annabeth told me. "Quick, Percy, get in the water."**

**"I'm okay."**

**"No, you're not," she said. "Chiron, watch this."**

**I was too tired to argue. I stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me.**

Annabeth smiles remembering the moment.

**Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.**

**"Look, I—I don't know why," I said, trying to apologize. "I'm sorry..."**

"Idiot." Annabeth mutters under her breath.

**But they weren't watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head.**

**"Percy," Annabeth said, pointing. "Um ..."**

**By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.**

"I wish I had something like that for my claiming." Piper mutters. "Instead I was given a beauty makeover I didn't really want."

**"Your father," Annabeth murmured. "This is **_**really **_**not good."**

**"It is determined," Chiron announced.**

**All around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it.**

**"My father?" I asked, completely bewildered.**

**"Poseidon," said Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, **

Annabeth's head shoots up at that.

**Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God."**

"Alright I'm done, who wants to read next?" Hephaestus asks. Before anyone answers Annabeth stood up. "Can we have a little break? I need to talk to the other demigods." She asks. Zeus nods and Annabeth grabs the others and they jet out of the throne room.


	11. Chapter 11

**Hey, so I'm back. Like I said before, I'm going through some things so I don't always have time to update. I'm going to try and post five today, so hopefully that makes up for the month gone. I'm glad that everyone is enjoying this. This chapter is short compared to others and I know it might be boring but it has a lot of key information that needs to be addressed in the story.**

**I do not own PJO or HoO. They both belong to Rick Riordan.**

When the demigods were out of the throne room Piper turns to Annabeth. "What was that about?" She asks. "Did you not hear the line? I can't believe I didn't realize it. It's so obvious. I mean-"

"What are you talking about?" Jason asks Annabeth and she sighs. "Seven half-bloods shall answer the call, to storm or fire the world must fall." Leo looks confused. "Why are you reciting part of the great prophecy?" Piper's eyes pop out. She just realized what Annabeth is trying to tell them. "Storm…" She mutters. "To storm or fire the world must fall. We thought the storm was Jason but what if it's not? What if Percy is the storm?"

The gears are turning in Jason and Leo's heads. It makes sense but what could that mean. "But then… Am I the fire?" Leo asks both confused and worried. 'When a child of Hephaestus that's a fire user appears, it usually means something catastrophic is about to happen.' Nyssa had once told him. Was this what she had meant? Could Leo's fire skill cause the team the quest? Or would it somehow help Gaia.

"I don't know Leo." Annabeth sighs in frustration. She hates not knowing something. "I have no clue what any of this means." She stomps her foot and starts pacing back and forth. "Hey, don't look so down." Piper says. "Gaia is earth, earth is the world. How do we know that it doesn't mean we'll defeat Gaia?" Leo's eyes light up.

"I never thought of that." Jason says. Why don't we just recite the prophecy and try to figure out what it could mean… in a positive way." Annabeth marches back over to us. "Seven half-bloods shall answer the call, to storm or fire the world must fall. An oath to keep to the final breath and foes bear arms to the doors of death."

"Seven half-bloods shall answer the call. That's the four of us, Percy, and the other two Romans." Piper says. "To storm or fire the world must fall." Jason recites. "That could mean the world will end thanks to Percy or Leo." Annabeth says unhelpfully. "Or, as piper said it could mean that me or Percy defeat Gaia." Leo says. "An oath to keep to the final breath." Annabeth says and everyone goes quiet. "What if someone dies for the cause?" Annabeth says. "That's not very positive." Piper says back but Annabeth isn't done yet. "What if they die? But the doors of death are still open, right? So they escape through there."

"That's a good idea, that could be what will happen." Leo says, still not happy though that someone has to die. "And finally, and foes bear arms to the doors of death. Gaia is guarding the doors. She can bring her people back. But I'm sure we can defeat them and close the doors." Jason says, though his voice doesn't back up his statement. "Jason's right, we can do this." Annabeth says confidently. "We had about forty people fight in the streets of Manhattan a little under a year ago. Those forty people were going up against armies among armies of monsters. Not to mention a few titans such as Hyperion and Kronos. If we can do that, the seven of us can take down Gaia and her Giants. We can do this."

Everyone just stands there, not quite sure what to do after Annabeth's speech. "Maybe we should go back inside and see the gods?" Piper suggests, and the four of them are on their way back to the throne room. When they enter all the gods are waiting for them. "What took you so long?" Zeus asks a little annoyed. "We had things to discuss." and with that they all sat down and got ready to continue with the story.

**So that's it for the chapter. As I said above, I'll be posting quite a few today. There should be another three or four up a few minutes after this one. I hope you all enjoyed this.**


	12. Chapter 12

**So here's chapter two of five that I'm posting today. As for why I'm posting when I should be at school, I'm sick Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter.**

**I do not own PJO or HoO. They both belong to RR (Rick Riordan) who has to be one of the most awesome writers ever.**

"I guess I'll read then." Athena says breaking the silence.

"**I Am Offered a Quest," **Athena reads.

**The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.**

**I didn't have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.**

"Awesome" All the guy gods and Leo say. "Not really." Jason mutters under his breath. Piper gives him a questioning glance as she heard him. She grabs his hand and intertwines her fingers with his, giving his hand a squeeze. He looks at her and smiles, grateful to have her there.

**And I was absolutely miserable.**

Every god and goddess looks confused. Leo's staring blankly at the book. "How could that be bad?"

**Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid—or as normal as you can be when you're a half-blood—I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease.**

The gods all look down, feeling sorry for Percy, while Piper looks at Jason.

"Is that how you feel?"

"Sometimes…" He mutters.

Piper leans over and gives him a small kiss on the cheek. Nobody is quite sure who is redder, Piper or Jason?

**Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back.**

"Who wouldn't?" Hermes asks, but he doesn't get a reply.

**The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one; that I was the son of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.**

"This won't be the last time they invade camp seaweed brain, get used to it." Annabeth says. Everyone else in the room stares at her wondering what she means.

**The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. **

**Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I'd done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.**

**"You're going to need all the training you can get," he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."**

Everyone grimaces. "That's rough; I don't think the Romans even did that."

**Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I'd just poked her between the eyes.**

Everyone looks at Annabeth quizzically.

**After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: "Quest ... Poseidon? ... Dirty rotten ... Got to make a plan …"**

The demigods snort and Annabeth glares at them. "Why were you being so rude?" Hestia asks her.

"He's the son of my mother's rival. I know it wasn't right for me to hate him, but we resolved all of our issues soon enough."

**Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored.**

"I'm sure if he told her that she'd be more than happy to oblige." Annabeth mutters.

**I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the **_**New York Daily News, **_**opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.**

_**BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER**_ _**FREAK CAR ACCIDENT**_

_**BY EILEEN SMYTHE**_

Poseidon pales and everyone looks down, remembering sally's 'death'.

_**Sally Jackson and son Percy are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken.**_

Everyone grimaces at that, then they all glare at Zeus and**/**or Hades.

_**The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.**_

_**Mother and son had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.**_

"Of course they hadn't seen anything. Mortals and they minds." Artemis says shaking her head.

_**Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, claims that his stepson, Percy Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.**_

_**Police would not say whether son Percy is a suspect in his mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson and Percy. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.**_

Everyone grits their teeth at that.

**The phone number was circled in black marker.**

**I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin.**

**"Lights out," I told myself miserably.**

**That night, I had my worst dream yet.**

Annabeth groans. "I hate his dreams."

Everyone looks at her. '_Could his dreams really be that bad?'_

**I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.**

Hermes thinks for a second. "Isn't that Los Angeles?"

Apollo grins wildly. "Yeah..."

**About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. **

"Is that Zeus and Poseidon?" Athena asks. Everyone looks at the two gods and bursts out laughing.

**They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.**

**I had to stop them. I didn't know why. But the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back, until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.**

**Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, **_**Give it back! Give it back! **_**Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.**

Everyone laughs at the analogy but Zeus looks confused. _'Give what back?'_

**The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt.**

**I yelled, **_**Stop it! Stop fighting!**_

**The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice**_**.**_

Everyone turns to Hades. "Oh come on. My laugh is many things. Maybe creepy or dark but it certainly does not sound evil."

Athena shivers. "Let's hope it is Hades."

_**Come down, little hero, **_**the voice crooned. **_**Come down!**_

**The sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and darkness swallowed me.**

**I woke up, sure I was falling.**

Annabeth sighs. "Good, it was a good dream."

"A GOOD DREAM!?" everyone shouts at her and she just nods.

"Wait till you hear about his bad dreams." At that she shivers and everyone else looks a little worried.

**I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dreamed that.**

**I heard a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold.**

**"Come in?"**

**Grover trotted inside, looking worried. "Mr. D wants to see you."**

**"Why?"**

**"He wants to kill... I mean, I'd better let him tell you."**

"I swear that satyr is dead when I see him." Annabeth mutters.

**Nervously, I got dressed and followed, sure that I was in huge trouble.**

**For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a son of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive.**

**The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing, and now Mr. D was ready to deliver their verdict.**

"I wouldn't have sent Dionysus to do it, he would have messed it up. It probably would have been Hermes." Zeus says then cowers under the glares coming from Poseidon and Annabeth.

**Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. **

**A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Grover if we needed an umbrella.**

**"No," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to."**

"Or when Zeus gets mad." Hades mutters, ignoring the glare from his brother.

**I pointed at the storm. "What the heck is that, then?"**

**He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."**

**I realized he was right. In the week I'd been here, it had never even been overcast. The few rain clouds I'd seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley.**

**But this storm ... this one was huge.**

Everyone looks at Zeus.

**At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. Dionysus's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm.**

**Grover and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheel chair. They were playing against invisible opponents-two sets of cards hovering in the air.**

**"Well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our little celebrity."**

**I waited.**

**"Come closer," Mr. D said. "And don't expect me to bow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father."**

Poseidon looks at Dionysus. "Really, Barnacle-Beard?"

Dionysus shrugs. "I got it from Athena."

**A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.**

**"Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said.**

**Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowered by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth.**

**"If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. **

Poseidon glares at Dionysus, while said god tries to shrink down into his throne.

**But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."**

**"Spontaneous combustion **_**is **_**a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in.**

**"Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself. I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."**

"How would you like it if I turned you into a bowl of grapes and then sent you back to Zeus." Poseidon says angrily at a scared Dionysus.

**"Mr. D—" Chiron warned.**

**"Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the boy is still here when I get back, I'll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Perseus Jackson, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do."**

Dionysus whimpers at the glares coming his way.

**Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security pass.**

**He snapped his fingers.**

**The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.**

**Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Percy, please. And Grover."**

**We did.**

**Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.**

"That's probably why Dionysus left early." Hermes smiles.

**"Tell me, Percy," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"**

**Just hearing the name made me shudder.**

**Chiron probably wanted me to say, **_**Heck, it was nothing. I eat hellhounds for breakfast.**_

'Can you eat a hellhound for breakfast?" Leo asks

"No you idiot." Piper says hitting him upside the head**.**

**But I didn't feel like lying.**

**"It scared me," I said. "If you hadn't shot it, I'd be dead."**

**"You'll meet worse, Percy. Far worse, before you're done."**

**"Done ... with what?"**

"How slow can he get?" Athena mutters under her breath.

**"Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?"**

**I glanced at Grover, who was crossing his fingers.**

**"Um, sir," I said, "you haven't told me what it is yet."**

"Ah, the details." Hermes sighs.

**Chiron grimaced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."**

**Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.**

**"Poseidon and Zeus," I said. "They're fighting over something valuable ... something that was stolen, aren't they?"**

Everyone looks confused at that except for Athena and Annabeth.

**Chiron and Grover exchanged looks.**

**Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"**

**My face felt hot. I wished I hadn't opened my big mouth. "The weather since Christmas has been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then I talked to Annabeth, and she'd overheard something about a theft.**

**And ... I've also been having these dreams."**

**"I knew it," Grover said.**

**"Hush, satyr," Chiron ordered.**

**"But it is his quest!" Grover's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!"**

**"Only the Oracle can determine." **

Apollo saddens at the mention of the Oracle.

**Chiron stroked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Percy, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."**

The throne room went deadly silent. "My lightning bolt…" Zeus whispers. "WHO STOLE IT!?" He shouts glaring at everyone. "I'll kill the boy if he has anything to do with it. I'll kill him!"

"Calm brother," Demeter says. "There is no proof that Percy has taken your lightning bolt. I'm sure it was all just a misunderstanding.

Zeus sits back down in his seat but he is still glaring at Poseidon.

**I laughed nervously. "A **_**what**_**?"**

**"Do not take this lightly," Chiron warned. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives."**

**"Oh."**

"Oh. Oh is all he can say." Zeus says angrily while he takes out his lightning bolt and starts hugging it.

**"Zeus's master bolt," Chiron said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."**

Zeus grins wildly.

"F-firecrackers?" Leo asked amazed.

**"And it's missing?"**

**"Stolen," Chiron said.**

**"By who?"**

"By _whom_." Athena states.

**"By **_**whom**_**," Chiron corrected.**

**Once a teacher, always a teacher.**

"Isn't that right." Dionysus mutters, glancing at Athena.

Athena glares at him and he shivers.

**"By you."**

"I knew it." Zeus shouts at Poseidon.

**My mouth fell open.**

**"At least"—Chiron held up a hand—"that's what Zeus thinks.**

"Oh." Zeus says quietly.

**During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument.**

**The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' 'Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' etcetera. **

Everyone laughs remembering what they were arguing about earlier that day.

**Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. **

"Of course he did." Poseidon sighs.

**Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly—that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."**

**"But I didn't—"**

**"Patience and listen, child," Chiron said. "Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne.**

"Do you seriously think that?" Poseidon asks his brother.

"It could happen." Zeus whispers and Poseidon rolls his eyes.

**The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief."**

**"But I've never even been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!"**

Everyone in the throne room gasps and Zeus just looks shocked.

**Chiron and Grover glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting around us, as Grover had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.**

"Such morbid thoughts for a twelve year old." Hera says.

**"Er, Percy ...?" Grover said. "We don't use the **_**c**_**-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."**

**"Perhaps **_**paranoid," **_**Chiron suggested. **

**"Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam..." He looked at me as if he actually expected me to remember question thirty-eight.**

**How could anyone accuse me of stealing a god's weapon? I couldn't even steal a slice of pizza from Gabe's poker party without getting busted. **

**Chiron was waiting for an answer.**

**"Something about a golden net?" I guessed. "Poseidon and Hera and a few other gods ... they, like, trapped Zeus and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler, right?"**

"It didn't work." Poseidon mutters and Zeus glares at him.

**"Correct," Chiron said. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since. **

**Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you've come along—the proverbial last straw."**

**"But I'm just a kid!"**

**"Percy," Grover cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you... Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"**

Everyone chuckled at Grover's analogy.

**"But I didn't do anything. Poseidon—my dad—he didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?"**

**Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Percy?"**

**"Bad?" I guessed.**

"Very bad." Athena says glancing at her father and her uncle.

**"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight."**

The trio of demigods gasp but Annabeth doesn't seem fazed.

**"Bad," I repeated.**

**"And you, Percy Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."**

**It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.**

_**I **_**had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me. I was furious.**

**"So I have to find the stupid bolt," **

"My master bolt is _not_ stupid!"

**I said. "And return it to Zeus."**

**"What better peace offering," Chiron said, "than to have the son of Poseidon return Zeus's property?"**

**"If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is the thing?"**

**"I believe I know." Chiron's expression was grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago ... well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."**

Annabeth shutters remembering the old oracle.

**"Why can't you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?"**

**"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge."**

**I swallowed. "Good reason."**

**"You agree then?"**

**I looked at Grover, who nodded encouragingly.**

**Easy for him. I was the one Zeus wanted to kill.**

The demigods chuckle.

**"All right," I said. "It's better than being turned into a dolphin."**

**"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Percy Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."**

**Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trap door.**

**I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.**

**The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else ... a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes.**

**I held my breath and climbed.**

**The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled **_**things**_—**severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969.**

**By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy.**

**Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.**

Apollo glares at Hades, who is trying not to notice.

**Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trap door, but it slammed shut.**

**Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: **_**I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.**_

Piper shivers remembering her incident with the oracle. She doesn't blame Rachel for it but she's had many nightmares of it.

Jason unlinks his hand from hers and puts his arm around her shoulder, comforting her. He remembers the feeling he had when he saw Piper dragged into the big house, everyone thinking she was dead.

Piper puts her head on Jason's shoulder and snuggles up next to him, making her feel protected. Not that she needed protection.

Aphrodite is trying not to squeal. The whole chapter she has been watching the couple and she must say they are so cute together.

**I wanted to say, **_**No thanks, wrong door, just looking for the bathroom. **_

**But I forced myself to take a deep breath.**

**The mummy wasn't alive. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle for something else, the power that was now swirling around me in the green mist. But its presence didn't feel evil, like my demonic math teacher Mrs. Dodds or the Minotaur. **

**It felt more like the Three Fates I'd seen knitting the yarn outside the highway fruit stand: ancient, powerful, and definitely **_**not **_**human. But not particularly interested in killing me, either.**

"He sure is observant." Aphrodite says, taking her eyes off of the couple.

**I got up the courage to ask, "What is my destiny?"**

"Cheesy much." Ares mutters.

**The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Gabe and his buddies.**

**My fists clenched, though I knew this poker party couldn't be real. It was an illusion, made out of mist.**

**Gabe turned toward me and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: **_**You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.**_

Everyone but Annabeth looks (or in Zeus' case glares) at Hades. Everyone is surprised when Annabeth glares at a confused Ares.

**His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: **_**You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.**_

"YES!" Zeus yells and starts to dance. Everyone else in the throne room is silent watching Zeus for a second.

**The guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said: **_**You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.**_

The silent question on almost everyone's mind is 'which friend?'

**Finally, Eddie, our building superior, delivered the worst line of all: **_**And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.**_

Zeus whimpers at that.

**The figures began to dissolve. At first I was too stunned to say anything, but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy, I cried, "Wait! What do you mean? What friend? What will I fail to save?"**

"It doesn't work that way, sorry." Apollo says.

**The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years. **

**The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.**

**I got the feeling that I could stand here until I had cob webs, too, and I wouldn't learn anything else.**

**My audience with the Oracle was over.**

Hephaestus sighs. "I agree with Mother," He said mother with so much hate that you knew he had many other names in mind that he would be happy to call her. "He has such morbid thoughts for a twelve year old."

**"Well?" Chiron asked me.**

**I slumped into a chair at the pinochle table. "She said I would retrieve what was stolen."**

**Grover sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!"**

**"What did the Oracle say **_**exactly?" **_**Chiron pressed. "This is important."**

Annabeth remembers what the oracle said for the great prophecy and shivers. Yes it did matter the exact words.

**My ears were still tingling from the reptilian voice. "She ... she said I would go west and face a god who had turned. I would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."**

**"I knew it," Grover said.**

**Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"**

**I didn't want to tell him.**

"You should tell him, he could help you." Hera says sighing.

**What friend would betray me? I didn't have that many.**

**And the last line—I would fail to save what mattered most. What kind of Oracle would send me on a quest and tell me, **_**Oh, by the way, you'll fail**_**.**

"That does kind of suck, doesn't it?" Hermes says not helping.

**How could I confess that?**

**"No," I said. "That's about it."**

**He studied my face. "Very well, Percy. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."**

**I got the feeling he knew I was holding back something bad, and he was trying to make me feel better.**

"Of course he knew, that man can see through steel." Demeter says.

**"Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do I go? Who's this god in the west?"**

**"Ah, think, Percy," Chiron said. "If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?"**

**"Somebody else who wants to take over?" I guessed.**

"They're going to blame me, aren't they?" Hades sighs.

**"Yes, quite. Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."**

**I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from under the ground. **

Hades sighs and a few people look at him sympathetically. Zeus starts glaring at him; after all, he may have taken his bolt.

**"Hades."**

**Chiron nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility."**

"No he's not. Chiron just wanted to believe that he was the only possibility." Annabeth whispers and nobody hears her, well nobody but Athena. She stares at her daughter trying to figure out what she's talking about.

An idea formed in Athena's head and her face turned pale. "It can't be." She says grasping the attention of the other gods. "He can't be… He isn't… It's not possible for…" Athena trails off unable to form a sentence.

"What is it Athena?" Zeus asks mildly concerned. "Nothing, it just… It just has to be Hades." Athena says whiter than ever. She looks down and her worst fears are confirmed. She wants to tell the others but she knows that what happens in the future happens in the future and they cannot change that. Telling the others would just scare them. They'd find out soon enough anyways.

**A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh-what?"**

**"A Fury came after Percy," Chiron reminded him. "She watched the young man until she was sure of his identity, then tried to kill him. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."**

**"Yes, but—but Hades hates **_**all **_**heroes," Grover protested. "Especially if he has found out Percy is a son of Poseidon..."**

**"A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continued.**

**"Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here. He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Percy to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill this young half-blood before he can take on the quest."**

**"Great," I muttered. "That's two major gods who want to kill me."**

"Always looking at the Brightside." Leo says sarcastically, but surprisingly he doesn't get slapped. He looks over at Piper to see that she's too busy snuggled up next to Jason to care about his remark. He smiles looking at them, He loves Piper like a sister and He's glad that she's happy.

**"But a quest to ..." Grover swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."**

**"Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon.** **I don't pretend to under stand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Percy must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."**

"The truth is I didn't do it, you must at least see that Athena" Hades begs Athena. "I'm sorry Hades; yes there is another option but… But I hope for the sake of you, me, and all the other Olympians that it is you." Athena says shaken up. The gods all look at her, wondering what could scare the goddess of wisdom and war so much, aside from spiders, that is.

**A strange fire burned in my stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn't fear. It was anticipation. The desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill me three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur, and the hellhound. It was his fault my mother had disappeared in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame me and my dad for a theft we hadn't committed.**

**I was ready to take him on.**

**Besides, if my mother was in the Underworld…**

**Whoa, boy, said the small part of my brain that was still sane. You're a kid. Hades is a god.**

"Yes, I like that part of your brain." Poseidon says nodding vigorously. "You should listen to it more often."

**Grover was trembling. He'd started eating pinochle cards like potato chips.**

**The poor guy needed to complete a quest with me so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was, but how could I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said I was destined to fail? This was suicide.**

**"Look, if we know it's Hades," I told Chiron, "why can't we just tell the other gods? Zeus or Poseidon could go down to the Underworld and bust some heads."**

Ares nods enthusiastically, while Apollo and Hermes stifle there laughter at the idea of their father and uncle 'busting some heads.'

**"Suspecting and knowing are not the same," Chiron said. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades—and I imagine Poseidon does—they couldn't retrieve the bolt themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it.** **No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"**

**"You're saying I'm being used."**

The gods all look at the demigods, trying to see if they feel the same way. When none of the demigods look them in the eye they all realize the answer and look away ashamed.

**"I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs you."**

**My dad needs me.**

**Emotions rolled around inside me like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. **

_Just like Pipers eyes._ Jason thinks as he stares intently into her beautiful kaleidoscope eyes before giving her a quick but meaningful kiss.

**I didn't know whether to feel resentful or grateful or happy or angry. Poseidon had ignored me for twelve years. Now suddenly he needed me.**

Poseidon looks down at that, feeling ashamed.

**I looked at Chiron. "You've known I was Poseidon's son all along, haven't you?"**

**"I had my suspicions. As I said ... I've spoken to the Oracle, too."**

**I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling me about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, I was holding back information too.**

**"So let me get this straight," I said. "I'm supposed go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead."**

**"Check," Chiron said.**

**"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe."**

**"Check."**

**"And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days."**

**"That's about right."**

"I'd take our quest to free Hera anytime over that, right guys?" Leo says to Jason and Piper but when no response is heard he looks over at them just staring at each other, ignoring everything else.

**I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.**

**"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.**

**"You don't have to go," I told him. "I can't ask that of you."**

**"Oh..." He shifted his hooves. "No... it's just that satyrs and underground places... well..."**

**He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Percy. If ... if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you down."**

**I felt so relieved I wanted to cry,** **though I didn't think that would be very heroic.**

"No, it wouldn't." Snorted Ares only to have thousands of liters of salt water dumped on him.

**Grover was the only friend I'd ever had for longer than a few months. I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with me.**

**"All the way, G-man." I turned to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west."**

**"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."**

**"Where?"**

**Chiron looked surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."**

**"Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane—"**

"NO!" Poseidon yells looking panicked.

"Yes young nephew, come into my domain. I would love for you to pay me a visit." Zeus says smirking.

**"No!" Grover shrieked. "Percy, what are you thinking? Have you ever been on a plane in your life?"**

**I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. My mom had never taken me anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.**

**"Percy, think," Chiron said. "You are the son of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive."**

**Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed.**

**"Okay," I said, determined not to look at the storm. "So, I'll travel overland."**

Zeus pouted and Poseidon smiles.

**"That's right," Chiron said. "Two companions may accompany you. Grover is one. The other has already volunteered, if you will accept her help."**

Please don't be Annabeth, please don't be Annabeth, please don't be Annabeth, please don't be…Athena chants silently in her head.

**"Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?"**

**The air shimmered behind Chiron.**

Athena groans and looks at her daughter, who by the way is smiling guiltily.

**Annabeth became visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket.**

**"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, Seaweed Brain,"** **she said. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon,**

To prove the point both Athena and Poseidon glare at each other.

**but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."**

**"If you do say so yourself," I said. "I suppose you have a plan, Wise Girl?"**

**Her cheeks colored. **

**"Do you want my help or not?"**

**The truth was, I did. I needed all the help I could get.**

**"A trio," I said. "That'll work."**

Leo looks at his to friends who gently raise their heads up to look at him and smile, before Piper crawls more into Jason's lap and rests her head on his chest.

**"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."**

**Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.**

**"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."**

"That's the end of the chapter." Athena says gently putting down the book. "I'm hungry." Leo says then looks up at Zeus.

Zeus nods. "It is about dinner time; let's go have some dinner then read two chapters before nightfall." And with that they all leave for the kitchen.

**Alright that's it for the chapter; I hope you all enjoyed it. The next one will hopefully be up in a few minutes.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Here's chapter three of five posted today. I hope you all really enjoy it, I enjoy writing for you.**

**Anyways I do not own PJO or HoO. They belong to R R (Rick Riordan).**

The Beauty of the kitchen is still breath taking as ever, but it does not affect the demigods as it did before. Everyone walks over to the table and sits down in their seats. Everyone starts talking and joking around before the food comes.

"Want to split a pizza?" Annabeth asks Piper. They had had a huge lunch and both of them were sure neither would finish on their own.

"Sure, why not." As soon as the words left Pipers mouth a giant pizza materialized right in front of the two of them. 'That was fast." Annabeth mutters taking a slice of pizza. Piper nods before taking one herself.

A mild conversation breaks out over dinner while the gods try to learn more about their children.

"So, Annabeth. How's things going with your dad?" Athena asks hoping that things are okay between her former love and her daughter.

Annabeth swallows a mouthful of pizza before answering. "Good, good. There are times that we… disagree but other than that things are good. We had some… uh… rough times when I was younger, but almost everything has been resolved"

"That's good, I'm glad to hear that everything is going good." Athena says letting out an inaudible sigh, glad that things worked out.

"What about you Piper, how are you and Tristan doing?" Aphrodite asks with keen interest on one of her favorite children.

Piper smiles and puts down her third slice of pizza. "Great, things are getting better. You know, he used to always be so busy with his work and all so we'd never get time together, but now." Piper says still smiling. "He's taking time out of work to take me places; everything's gotten so much better. Especially since his old assistant who had her mind sent on getting rid of me and working with monsters is gone. Everything is so much better now"

Piper absentmindedly looks over at Jason and smiles. This does not go unnoticed by Aphrodite. She already had a huge smile on her face learning that her beautiful daughter has a beautiful relationship with her father, but her eyes just start sparkling when she sees the exchange of looks between her daughter and Jason.

"What about you Jason," Zeus says snapping Aphrodite out of her trance. "How's your mother doing?"

Jason puts down his food and Piper leans over and squeezes his hand. "Mom gave me up to Hera/Juno when I was 2. Thalia says that a couple of years ago mom was drinking and got into an accident. I don't really have any memories of her." He sighs down and whispers so only Piper can hear. "And from what Thalia tells me I'm sort of glad I don't."

Zeus looks down and everyone looks down at that. Piper gives Jason's hand another squeeze then leans over and gives him a kiss on the cheek. She knew how hard it was for him when he found out about his mother, but at least he had Thalia.

Hephaestus looks over at Leo but before he can ask anything Leo answers his unasked question. "I'm not going to talk about her." He says quietly and Hephaestus nods but still looks worried, for both his son and the woman he once loved.

Everyone stays quiet for a few minutes, not a word is heard. Annabeth is the one to break the silence when she stands up.

"Why don't we go and continue with the book." She suggests while looking worriedly at Jason and Leo who are both avoiding eye contact. Everyone mumble in accent then they all get up and start to make their way towards the throne room.

**Sorry for the short chapter, I'll have another long one posted in a few minutes. I hope you guys liked this **


	14. Chapter 14

**Hey, here's chapter four of five, enjoy.**

**Rick Riordan owns the rights to PJO and HoO, and unfortunately, I'm not him.**

When everyone returned to the throne room there was not a sound to be heard. Everyone was quiet and not really sure what to say.

"I guess I'll read." Artemis says, then picks up the book and opens it to the right page.

"**I Ruin a Perfectly Good Bus," **Artemis reads.

"Already?" Aphrodite asks, shocked that someone could already have trouble just after starting the quest.

**It didn't take me long to pack. I decided to leave the Minotaur horn in my cabin, which left me only an extra change of clothes and a toothbrush to stuff in a backpack Grover had found for me.**

**The camp store loaned me one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. These coins were as big as Girl Scout cookies and had images of various Greek gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. **

"Girl Scout cookies," Apollo's mouth waters.

"We just had dinner." Artemis says exasperated.

**The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron told us, but Olympians never used less than pure gold. Chiron said the coins might come in handy for non-mortal transactions—whatever that meant. He gave Annabeth and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. **

"Hopefully that isn't the case," Poseidon grimaces.

Athena nods. "For once I agree with him."

**It was god food, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of almost any injury, but it was lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally.**

**Annabeth was bringing her magic Yankees cap, which she told me, had been a twelfth-birthday present from her mom. **

Athena smiles down at her daughter.

"Whoa, what does it do?" Leo asks stupidly.

Annabeth just rolls her eyes and puts on the cap, turning herself invisible. When she takes the cap off the three new demigods' eyes were bulging out of their eye sockets. Annabeth laughs at their faces then stuffs the cap back in her pocket.

**She carried a book on famous classical architecture, written in Ancient Greek, to read when she got bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in her shirt sleeve. **

**I was sure the knife would get us busted the first time we went through a metal detector.**

"Idiot." Annabeth mutters and shakes her head.

**Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.**

Annabeth snorts and Dionysus looks grieved. "You mean he doesn't get any better?" He asks and Annabeth shakes her head. Dionysus groans and slinks back into his throne.

**We waved good-bye to the other campers, took one last look at the strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, then hiked up Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus.**

Jason flinches when he hears that and looks confused all over again. _How did Thalia become human again?_

**Chiron was waiting for us in his wheelchair. Next to him stood the surfer dude I'd seen when I was recovering in the sick room. According to Grover, the guy was the camp's head of security. He supposedly had eyes all over his body so he could never be surprised. Today, though, he was wearing a chauffeur's uniform, so I could only see extra peepers on his hands, face and neck.**

"Must suck to play hide and seek with him," Leo mutters earning a few chuckles.

**"This is Argus," Chiron told me. "He will drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things."**

"Bad pun, Chiron. Bad pun." Hermes says shaking his head.

**I heard footsteps behind us.**

**Luke came running up the hill, carrying a pair of basketball shoes.**

Annabeth's face darkens at the mention of the shoes and everyone looked at her quizzically.

**"Hey!" he panted. "Glad I caught you."**

**Annabeth blushed, the way she always did when Luke was around.**

"Did not." Annabeth huffs.

**"Just wanted to say good luck," Luke told me. "And I thought ... um, maybe you could use these."**

**He handed me the sneakers, which looked pretty normal. They even smelled kind of normal.**

"How do shoes smell normal?" Piper asks, but she doesn't get a response.

**Luke said, **_**"Maia!"**_

At hearing the 'magic word' Hermes shoes sprout wings and fly him out of his throne.

"Maia." Hermes says, and he returns to his throne.

**White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels, startling me so much, I dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.**

**"Awesome!" Grover said.**

"You bet." Leo says excitedly.

**Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days..." His expression turned sad.**

**I didn't know what to say. It was cool enough that Luke had come to say good-bye. I'd been afraid he might resent me for getting so much attention the last few days. But here he was giving me a magic gift... It made me blush almost as much as Annabeth.**

"I was not blushing." Growled Annabeth.

**"Hey, man," I said. "Thanks."**

**"Listen, Percy ..." Luke looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just ... kill some monsters for me, okay?"**

"Sure, that's what he wanted." Annabeth mutters under her breath and nobody hears her.

**We shook hands. Luke patted Grover's head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to Annabeth, who looked like she might pass out.**

"Did not." Annabeth says heatedly, as if she were ready to argue with anyone who challenged her.

**After Luke was gone, I told her, "You're hyperventilating."**

"Was not."

**"Am not."**

"You don't change much, do you?" Leo says only to be hit on the back of the head by Annabeth.

**"You let him capture the flag instead of you, didn't you?"**

**"Oh ... why do I want to go anywhere with you, Percy?"**

"Yes, why do you." Athena says pointedly at her daughter who ignores her.

**She stomped down the other side of the hill, where a white SUV waited on the shoulder of the road. Argus followed, jingling his car keys.**

**I picked up the flying shoes and had a sudden bad feeling. I looked at Chiron. "I won't be able to use these, will I?"**

"Smart boy," Zeus smiles. "He knows his limits."

"Please, you're just a mean uncle," Hera smacks him. "I'm sure your _children_ have swam before." She said children with lots of distaste.

Hera looks over at Jason.

"I can barely swim," Jason admits. "So why test it right?"

Zeus smiled at Hera but Poseidon speaks up.

"Don't be scared, have fun in the water," He says encouragingly. "I won't do anything."

Piper leans over to Jason.

"I could teach you…to swim," She whispers. "If you'd like?"

Jason nods and smiles.

Piper leans back in her seat and Jason grabs her hand. She looks at him and smiles.

**He shook his head. "Luke meant well, Percy. But taking to the air ... that would not be wise for you."**

**I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. "Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?"**

**His eyes lit up. "Me?"**

**Pretty soon we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy was ready for launch.**

"There is a reason that satyrs don't fly…" Dionysus warns.

_**"Maia!" **_**he shouted.**

Hermes floats out of his throne once again.

"Maia." He says agitatedly.

**He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos.**

**"Practice," Chiron called after him. "You just need practice!"**

**"Aaaaa!" Grover went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van.**

**Before I could follow, Chiron caught my arm. "I should have trained you better, Percy," he said. "If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason—they all got more training."**

"What is he talking about? Jason" Leo says gesturing to Jason. "Only had about a day at camp before his quest."

"Well technically I think I had around twelve or thirteen, judging by what Thalia said." Jason replies

Piper shakes her head. "You two are both idiots he meant the Original Jason!"

"Oh…" The boys chorus, not looking at anybody while Piper groans and puts her head in her hands.

**"That's okay. I just wish—"**

**I stopped myself because I was about to sound like a brat. **

**I was wishing my dad had given me a cool magic item to help on the quest, something as good as Luke's flying shoes, or Annabeth's invisible cap.**

"I do have a gift for him, why isn't Chiron giving it to him?" Wondered Poseidon.

**"What am I thinking?" Chiron cried. "I can't let you get away without this."**

**He pulled a pen from his coat pocket and handed it to me. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably cost thirty cents.**

"That's…awesome?" Leo offers. He catches the weird glances from Piper and Jason and sighs. "Sorry bad lie…that blows!"

**"Gee," I said. "Thanks."**

**"Percy, that's a gift from your father. I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one."**

Apollo, Hermes and Leo all snort. How cheesy can you get.

**I remembered the field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I'd vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be ... ?**

**I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hand.**

"How strange is it that it's the only weapon that feels right in his hands?" Jason points out. "It's like it was made for him.

**"The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me.**

Artemis thoughts turn to Zoe and she feels her blood boil at the thought of Hercules.

**"Its name is Anaklusmos."**

**"'Riptide,'" I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily.**

**"Use it only for emergencies," Chiron said, "and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case."**

"Good thing too." Annabeth snorts remembering the time that Percy told her that he had met Rachel by swinging a sword at her.

**I looked at the wickedly sharp blade. "What do you mean it wouldn't harm mortals?" How could it not?"**

Almost everyone rolled their eyes at that.

**"The sword is celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It's deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don't kill you first. But the blade will pass through mortals like an illusion. They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill.**

"I'm so telling Rachel that." Annabeth laughs and Piper joins in.

"Remind us to be nowhere near her when you do." Jason says pointing to himself and Leo. That just made the girls laugh harder.

**And I should warn you: as a demigod, you can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons. You are **_**twice **_**as vulnerable."**

**"Good to know."**

"I know right" Leo says. "It sucks."

**"Now recap the pen."**

**I touched the pen cap to the sword tip and instantly Riptide shrank to a ballpoint pen again. I tucked it in my pocket, a little nervous, because I was famous for losing pens at school.**

"Implant a GPS, "Hephaestus offers.

**"You can't," Chiron said.**

**"Can't what?"**

**"Lose the pen," he said. **

"Already installed?" Hephaestus looks at Annabeth.

"No, no GPS."

**"It is enchanted. It will always reappear in your pocket. Try it."**

The three new demigods look at Annabeth expecting her to deny it, but she doesn't.

"Seriously?" Leo asks. Annabeth just nods. "That's freaking crazy; cooler than your coin Jason."

"Hey," Jason protests, but quickly closes his mouth. He also thinks that it's pretty cool. "Yeah, that is cool."

**I was wary, but I threw the pen as far as I could down the hill and watched it disappear in the grass.**

**"It may take a few moments," Chiron told me. "Now check your pocket."**

**Sure enough, the pen was there.**

"Awesome." Leo breathes.

**"Okay, that's **_**extremely **_**cool," I admitted. "But what if a mortal sees me pulling out a sword?"**

**Chiron smiled. "Mist is a powerful thing, Percy."**

**"Mist?"**

Piper groans. She didn't really like the mist. Jason grabs her hand and squeezes it.

**"Yes. Read **_**The Iliad. **_**It's full of references to the stuff. Whenever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mortal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans. **

**You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality."**

"Don't forget to mention that Chiron called her blunt." Piper tells Annabeth and the two of them start laughing again.

**I put Riptide back in my pocket.**

**For the first time, the quest felt real. I was actually leaving Half-Blood Hill. **

**I was heading west with no adult supervision, no backup plan, not even a cell phone. (Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be worse than sending up a flare.) I had no weapon stronger than a sword to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead.**

"And I thought finding Hera was hard." Leo groans and Piper and Jason nod.

**"Chiron ..." I said. "When you say the gods are immortal... I mean, there was a time **_**before **_**them, right?"**

**"Four ages before them, actually. The Time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age, **

"Time of the Titans," Hades growls. "Time of disasters is more like it."

"Even I agree with the lunatic," Demeter says.

**which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age."**

**"So what was it like ... before the gods?"**

"Not good hero," Hestia grimaces.

**Chiron pursed his lips. "Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appetizers or a source of cheap entertainment. **

Annabeth sighs, remembering all of the friends she lost trying to prevent that from happening again.

**It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born."**

**"But the gods can't die now, right? I mean, as long as Western civilization is alive, they're alive. So ... even if I failed, nothing could happen so bad it would mess up **_**everything, **_**right?"**

**Chiron gave me a melancholy smile. "No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, Percy. The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. **_**They **_**still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure end less pain and punishment, reduced in power, but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past. All we can do, child, is follow our destiny."**

"Percy's destiny sucks." Annabeth says bluntly.

**"Our destiny ... assuming we know what that is."**

**"Relax," Chiron told me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history."**

**"Relax," I said. "I'm very relaxed."**

"I wouldn't be," Leo comments. "He has to prevent a war, sounds like a lot of pressure."

"That's nothing," Annabeth adds. "Some of the choices he has to make are ridiculously hard. That is like choosing an ice-cream flavour compared to some others."

Poseidon looks frightened after Annabeth's revelation.

**When I got to the bottom of the hill, I looked back. Under the pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus, Chiron was now standing in full horse-man form, holding his bow high in salute. Just your typical summer-camp send-off by your typical centaur.**

"But of course," Hermes says smiling.

**Argus drove us out of the countryside and into western Long Island. It felt weird to be on a highway again, Annabeth and Grover sitting next to me as if we were normal carpoolers. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seemed like a fantasy. I found myself staring at every McDonald's, every kid in the back of his parents' car, every billboard and shopping mall.**

**"So far so good," I told Annabeth. "Ten miles and not a single monster."**

"Idiot." Piper mutters.

**She gave me an irritated look. "It's bad luck to talk that way, seaweed brain."**

**"Remind me again—why do you hate me so much?"**

**"I don't hate you."**

**"Could've fooled me."**

"He has a point," Jason points out. Annabeth looks down, ignoring everyone's glances.

**She folded her cap of invisibility. "Look ... we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."**

**"Why?"**

**She sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is **_**hugely **_**disrespectful.**

"You bet it is." Athena growls at Poseidon.

**Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."**

**"They must really like olives."**

All of the guys snort.

**"Oh, forget it."**

**"Now, if she'd invented pizza—**_**that **_**I could understand."**

"I agree." Apollo nods.

**"I said, forget it!"**

**In the front seat, Argus smiled. He didn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me.**

**Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhattan it was sunset and starting to rain.**

**Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Gabe's apartment. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?**

"He has no luck." Hestia says grimly.

**I ripped it down before Annabeth and Grover could notice.**

"We both noticed." Annabeth said.

**Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot.**

"Creepy." Leo shivers.

**I thought about how close I was to my old apartment. On a normal day, my mom would be home from the candy store by now. Smelly Gabe was probably up there right now, playing poker, not even missing her.**

"Jerk." Everyone in the throne room growls

**Grover shouldered his backpack. He gazed down the street in the direction I was looking. "You want to know why she married him, Percy?"**

**I stared at him. "Were you reading my mind or something?"**

**"Just your emotions." He shrugged. **

"No big deal." Apollo says waving his hand down sarcastically.

**"Guess I forgot to tell you satyrs can do that. You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?"**

**I nodded, wondering what else Grover might've forgotten to tell me.**

"That's about it." Dionysus says.

**"Your mom married Gabe for **_**you," **_**Grover told me. "You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. The guy has this aura…. Yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven't been near him for a week."**

"That's disgusting," Most say.

**"Thanks," I said. "Where's the nearest shower?"**

**"You should be grateful, Percy. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. **

**She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy—if that makes you feel any better."**

"If anything, it'll make him feel worse." Annabeth sighs.

**It didn't, but I forced myself not to show it.**

**I'll see her again, I thought. She isn't gone.**

**I wondered if Grover could still read my emotions, mixed up as they were. I was glad he and Annabeth were with me, but I felt guilty that I hadn't been straight with them. I hadn't told them the real reason I'd said yes to this crazy quest.**

**The truth was, I didn't care about retrieving Zeus's lightning bolt, or saving the world, or even helping my father out of trouble. **

Everyone except Annabeth looks shocked at that. Annabeth just smiles.

**The more I thought about it, I resented Poseidon for never visiting me, never helping my mom, never even sending a lousy child-support check. He'd only claimed me because he needed a job done.**

Poseidon looks down ashamed.

**All I cared about was my mom. Hades had taken her unfairly, and Hades was going to give her back.**

"You've got to admit," Hades says. "The kid has guts.

_**You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, **_**the Oracle whispered in my mind. **_**You will fail to save what matters most in the end.**_

"Got to hate prophecies," Leo says and Apollo frowns.

_**Shut up, **_**I told it.**

**The rain kept coming down.**

**We got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play some Hacky Sack with one of Grover's apples. Annabeth was unbelievable.**

"Really." Aphrodite says and giggles. Annabeth blushes beat red.

**She could bounce the apple off her knee, her elbow, her shoulder, whatever. I wasn't too bad myself.**

**The game ended when I tossed the apple toward Grover and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared—core, stem, and all.**

At this everyone bursts out laughing.

**Grover blushed. He tried to apologize, but Annabeth and I were too busy cracking up.**

**Finally the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favorite school cafeteria delicacy—enchiladas.**

There are a couple chuckles, but the air had grown intense.

**"What is it?" I asked.**

**"I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing."**

**But I could tell it wasn't nothing. I started looking over my shoulder, too.**

"Wise decision." Athena mutters.

**I was relieved when we finally got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. We stowed our back packs. Annabeth kept slapping her Yankees cap nervously against her thigh.**

**As the last passengers got on, Annabeth clamped her hand onto my knee. **

Aphrodite giggles and Annabeth goes redder. "Not like that." She squeaks.

**"Percy."**

**An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crumpled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big paisley purse. When she tilted her head up, her black eyes glittered, and my heart skipped a beat.**

"Huh?" Almost everybody asks confused. Annabeth is the only one not confused.

**It was Mrs. Dodds. Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face.**

**I scrunched down in my seat.**

**Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise they looked exactly like Mrs. Dodds—same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses. Triplet demon grandmothers.**

"Three Furies!" Poseidon roars. "Give them a break."

"Yes I agree," Athena glares at Hades. "Not only is the boy there, but so is my daughter, and the satyr. And I don't appreciate you trying to kill my daughter!"

"Shhhh" Ares says. "I'm trying to listen, I think a fights going to happen." He says the last bit like a giddy little girl who's about to get her very own pony.

Just then about 50 KL of freezing cold water was dumped on him and 10 owls were sent to peck his eyes out.

**They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody leaves.**

"Great," Athena mumbles. She looks at her daughter, scared for her life.

_She's here, she's fine._ Thinks Athena.

**The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of Manhattan. "She didn't stay dead long," I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering. "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime."**

**"I said if you're **_**lucky**_**," Annabeth said. "You're obviously not."**

"Understatement of the lifetime." Annabeth mutters.

**"All three of them," Grover whimpered. **_**"Di immortales!"**_

**"It's okay," Annabeth said, obviously thinking hard. "The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows."**

**"They don't open," Grover moaned.**

"What kind of design is that?" Hephaestus asks. "Every bus window should be able to open, in case of emergencies."

**"A back exit?" she suggested.**

**There wasn't one. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have helped. By that time, we were on Ninth Avenue, heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.**

"Oh great." Mutters Poseidon, looking pale.

**"They won't attack us with witnesses around," I said. "Will they?"**

**"Mortals don't have good eyes," Annabeth reminded me. "Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist."**

**"They'll see three old ladies killing us, won't they?"**

"Maybe, but they'll still attack." Hades says earning some glares.

**She thought about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof ... ?"**

**We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.**

**Mrs. Dodds got up. In a flat voice, as if she'd rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the rest-room."**

"I didn't need to know that." Leo groans and Piper hits him on the head.

**"So do I," said the second sister.**

**"So do I," said the third sister.**

"Gross." Apollo says only to be hit on the back of the head by Artemis.

**They all started coming down the aisle.**

**"I've got it," Annabeth said. "Percy, take my hat."**

"What?"

**"What?"**

"Whoa, weird." Hermes mutters.

**"You're the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away."**

**"But you guys—"**

**"There's an outside chance they might not notice us," Annabeth said. "You're a son of one of the Big Three. Your smell might be overpowering."**

**"I can't just leave you."**

"Good friend," Leo points out.

"Amazing friend," Annabeth corrects.

**"Don't worry about us," Grover said. "Go!"**

**My hands trembled. I felt like a coward, but I took the Yankees cap and put it on.**

**When I looked down, my body wasn't there anymore.**

"No duh, it's an invisibility hat." Hermes says.

**I started creeping up the aisle. I managed to get up ten rows, then duck into an empty seat just as the Furies walked past.**

**Mrs. Dodds stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at me. My heart was pounding.**

**Apparently she didn't see anything. She and her sisters kept going.**

Everyone let out a breath they didn't know they were holding.

**I was free. I made it to the front of the bus. We were almost through the Lincoln Tunnel now. I was about to press the emergency stop button when I heard hideous wailing from the back row.**

**The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same—I guess those couldn't get any uglier—but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their handbags had turned into fiery whips.**

**The Furies surrounded Grover and Annabeth, lashing their whips, hissing: "Where is it? Where?"**

_It. _Was Athena's thoughts. _He, where is he. Right?_

**The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw **_**something, **_**all right.**

"Ya'll be careful out there," Leo says pretending to be an old man. "There be crazy, demonic, triplet grandmothers out there that will eat your flesh." When he finishes Piper applauds him before slapping him on the back of the head.

**"He's not here!" Annabeth yelled. "He's gone!"**

**The Furies raised their whips.**

Everyone holds their breath, wondering what will happen.

**Annabeth drew her bronze knife. Grover grabbed a tin can from his snack bag and prepared to throw it.**

**What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should've been named ADHD poster child of the year.**

"Nope, sorry but Leo was born ADHD poster child." Piper says pointing to Leo, who was momentarily busy playing with a screw driver, some pipe cleaners, and an elastic band.

**The bus driver was distracted, trying to see what was going on in his rearview mirror.**

**Still invisible, I grabbed the wheel from him and jerked it to the left. Everybody howled as they were thrown to the right, and I heard what I hoped was the sound of three Furies smashing against the windows.**

"Awesome," Hermes and Apollo shout.

**"Hey!" the driver yelled. "Hey—whoa!"**

**We wrestled for the wheel. The bus slammed against the side of the tunnel, grinding metal, throwing sparks a mile behind us.**

"Oh just great, now they're all going to die." Athena says glaring at Poseidon, then looks at her daughter making sure she was okay.

**We careened out of the Lincoln Tunnel and back into the rainstorm, people and monsters tossed around the bus, cars plowed aside like bowling pins.**

"Just like when I ride my bike."

**Somehow the driver found an exit. We shot off the highway, through half a dozen traffic lights, and ended up barreling down one of those New Jersey rural roads where you can't believe there's so much nothing right across the river from New York. There were woods to our left, the Hudson River to our right, and the driver seemed to be veering toward the river.**

**Another great idea: I hit the emergency brake.**

"This is going to end badly," Athena grimaces.

"Who cares," Ares smiles. "Actions picking up."

**The bus wailed, spun a full circle on the wet asphalt, and crashed into the trees. The emergency lights came on. The door flew open. The bus driver was the first one out, the passengers yelling as they stampeded after him. I stepped into the driver's seat and let them pass.**

**The Furies regained their balance. They lashed their whips at Annabeth while she waved her knife and yelled in Ancient Greek, telling them to back off. Grover threw tin cans.**

"He really needs to learn how to use a weapon." Ares says exasperatedly.

"I think you'll find that reed pipes are a weapon, at least when you use the melodies in a certain way." Annabeth says remembering Hyperion and Kronos.

**I looked at the open doorway. I was free to go, but I couldn't leave my friends. I took off the invisible cap. "Hey!"**

"Idiot," Annabeth smiles.

This does not go unnoticed by Aphrodite, who looks confused. Annabeth had said that they were just good friends. That must have been it; otherwise it must mean that… Aphrodite resists the urge to squeal. Maybe she was right and they were together. Or maybe she was wrong, and they were just good friends. All this confusion was giving her a headache.

**The Furies turned, baring their yellow fangs at me, and the exit suddenly seemed like an excellent idea. Mrs. Dodds stalked up the aisle, just as she used to do in class, about to deliver my F- math test. Every time she flicked her whip, red flames danced along the barbed leather.**

**Her two ugly sisters hopped on top of the seats on either side of her and crawled toward me like huge nasty lizards.**

**"Perseus Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said, in an accent that was definitely from somewhere farther south than Georgia. "You have offended the gods. You shall die."**

"He always offends the gods," Annabeth sighs. "Get used to it."

Poseidon pales considerably at that.

**"I liked you better as a math teacher," I told her.**

**She growled.**

"Who wouldn't?" Hermes asks.

**Annabeth and Grover moved up behind the Furies cautiously, looking for an opening.**

**I took the ballpoint pen out of my pocket and uncapped it. Riptide elongated into a shimmering double-edged sword.**

**The Furies hesitated.**

**Mrs. Dodds had felt Riptide's blade before. She obviously didn't like seeing it again.**

"You think." Piper says in a 'duh!' way.

**"Submit now," she hissed. "And you will not suffer eternal torment."**

**"Nice try," I told her.**

**"Percy, look out!" Annabeth cried.**

**Mrs. Dodds lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on the either side lunged at me.**

Gasps were heard all over the room, wondering what was going to happen.

**My hand felt like it was wrapped in molten lead, but I managed not to drop Riptide. I stuck the Fury on the left with its hilt, sending her toppling backward into a seat. I turned and sliced the Fury on the right. As soon as the blade connected with her neck, she screamed and exploded into dust. Annabeth got Mrs. Dodds in a wrestler's hold and yanked her backward while Grover ripped the whip out of her hands.**

**"Ow!" he yelled. "Ow! Hot! Hot!"**

Annabeth rolls her eyes. "There was just flames going up it and you didn't think that it'd be hot!"

**The Fury I'd hilt-slammed came at me again, talons ready, but I swung Riptide and she broke open like a piñata.**

"Oooh! Was there candy?" Leo asks, getting bored of his little project.

"Don't mind him, he's an idiot." Piper says putting a little too much emotion into her voice.

"I'M AN IDIOT!" Leo shouts and starts running around the room. Everyone bursts out laughing at that.

"Sorry Leo." Piper whispers when he sat back down and everyone quieted down.

**Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Annabeth off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed and bit, but Annabeth held on while Grover got Mrs. Dodds's legs tied up in her own whip. Finally they both shoved her backward into the aisle. Mrs. Dodds tried to get up, but she didn't have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.**

Snorts are heard all around the room.

**"Zeus will destroy you!" she promised. "Hades will have your soul!"**

_**"Braccas meas vescimini!"**_** I yelled.**

Jason laughs at the Latin, earning some strange looks from almost everyone else.

**I wasn't sure where the Latin came from. **

**I think it meant "Eat my pants!"**

At this all of the guys burst out laughing while all of the girls (Except for Artemis who just smiled and muttered how idiotic boys were) tried to hold in their laughter, but in some cases it came out.

**Thunder shook the bus. The hair rose on the back of my neck.**

**"Get out!" Annabeth yelled at me. "Now!" I didn't need any encouragement.**

**We rushed outside and found the other passengers wandering around in a daze, arguing with the driver, or running around in circles yelling, "We're going to die!" A Hawaiian-shirted tourist with a camera snapped my photograph before I could recap my sword.**

"Stalker." Apollo and Hermes sing.

**"Our bags!" Grover realized. "We left our—"**

_**BOOOOOM!**_

**The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead.**

"Dad!" Jason says, but Zeus just stares at the floor.

**"Run!" Annabeth said. "She's calling for reinforcements! We have to get out of here!"**

"You speak Fury?" Leo asks

"No." Annabeth sighs. "I was using common sense.

**We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the bus in flames behind us, and nothing but darkness ahead.**

"So that's it." Artemis says closing the book. "Who wants to go next?"

"I will." Demeter says taking the book off of Artemis and opening it to the right page.

"**We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium," **Demeter read.

**I hope you all liked this. I'll have the last chapter I'm posting today up soon.**


	15. Chapter 15

**This is going to be the last chapter I post today, I hope you like this chapter and that you've enjoyed all the others.**

**Unfortunately, I am a teenage girl and not Rick Riordan, So I don't own PJO or HoO.**

"**We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium," **Demeter read.

Annabeth shudders and everyone stares at her. _Please don't freak out mom._ Annabeth thinks.

**In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, **

"He likes us," Apollo smiles. "Thanks Perce."

**because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong.**

"Well…he liked us," Apollo frowns.

**For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck;** **when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.**

Poseidon and Athena eye Zeus.

"Not only did you destroy their stuff, it's raining!" Athena says quite annoyed.

**So there we were, Annabeth and Grover and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses.**

**Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror.**

**"Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."**

**I was pretty much in shock myself. The explosion of bus windows still rang in my ears. But Annabeth kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."**

"Thank us Annabeth's there." Poseidon sighs then smiles at Annabeth.

**"All our money was back there," I reminded her. "Our food and clothes. Everything."**

**"Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight—"**

"Are you seriously blaming him for helping him out?" Piper asks who is shocked.

Annabeth blushes.

**"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?"**

**"You didn't need to protect me, Percy. I would've been fine."**

**"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine."**

"Nice comparison," Leo laughes.

**"Shut up, goat boy," said Annabeth.**

**Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."**

"Not exactly the main point." Hermes jokes.

**We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.**

**After a few minutes, Annabeth fell into line next to me. "Look, I..." Her voice faltered. "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was really brave."**

"Ah, this is just soo cute." Aphrodite squeals.

**"We're a team, right?"**

**She was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died ... aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."**

"I didn't mean it that way." Annabeth says when she gets glances her way.

**The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Annabeth except a glint of her blond hair.**

_He so likes you._ Aphrodite's voice appears in Annabeth's head. _He does not._

**"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" I asked her.**

**"No ... only short field trips. My dad—"**

**"The history professor."**

**"Yeah. It didn't work out for me living at home. **

Athena frowns. "I thought you said that you and you're dad were doing okay." Athena says and Annabeth sighs.

"We are now, but that was before. Things have changed."

**I mean, Camp Half-Blood **_**is **_**my home." She was rushing her words out now, as if she were afraid somebody might try to stop her.**

Hestia gives Annabeth a small smile and instantly Annabeth is filled with hope.

She was a great fighter. She would survive the quest. She would find \percy, and he would remember her.

She glances over at Hestia who is smiling. _Thank you. _Annabeth mouths and Hestia nods before turning her attention back to the book.

**"At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."**

"You're pretty good with that knife." Ares grunts then smiles at her, surprising everyone. That had to have been the nicest thing Ares has ever said.

**If I didn't know better, I could've sworn I heard doubt in her voice.**

**"You're pretty good with that knife," I said.**

"Ah, the compliments, you guys are beautiful," Aphrodite smiles dreamily.

**"You think so?"**

**"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me."**

"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by anybody." Hermes says smiling at Annabeth.

**I couldn't really see, but I thought she might've smiled.**

Just like she was doing now.

**"You know," she said, "maybe I should tell you ... Something funny back on the bus ..."**

**Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill **_**toot-toot-toot, **_**like the sound of an owl being tortured.**

**"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried.**

"I think the owl may have sounded better," Annabeth says thoughtfully while everyone stares at her, shocked.

"What, you've never heard him."

**"If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"**

**He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.**

Dionysus rolls his eyes. "Apollo, please teach my satyrs some good music."

"Will do D."

**Instead of finding a path, I immediately slammed into a tree and got a nice-size knot on my head.**

**Add to the list of superpowers I did **_**not **_**have: infrared vision.**

**After tripping and cursing and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food.**

"Those four words do not belong together in the same sentence." Demeter says, disgusted.

**I realized I hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since I'd arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbecue. This boy needed a double cheeseburger.**

**We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed-down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.**

**It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I'd hoped. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. **

"Hmm, I wonder if any of those statues can be an automation." Hephaestus ponders.

"Statues can't be automations." Hera says.

"Yes they can." Annabeth says before Hephaestus can comment.

Everyone looks at her wondering how she knows that. It was like she saw one, but how could she?

**The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there's anything worse for my dyslexia than regular English, it's red cursive neon English.**

**To me, it looked like: **_**ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM.**_

"I hate it when that happens," Leo says.

Piper holds a hand to her heart in surprise. "You read?" She asks innocently.

**"What the heck does that say?" I asked.**

**"I don't know," Annabeth said.**

**She loved reading so much; I'd forgotten she was dyslexic, too.**

"We all do." Piper says smiling at Annabeth.

**Grover translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."**

**Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken.**

**I crossed the street, following the smell of the hamburgers.**

**"Hey ..." Grover warned.**

_We should have listened. _Annabeth thinks.

**"The lights are on inside," Annabeth said. "Maybe it's open."**

**"Snack bar," I said wistfully.**

**"Snack bar," she agreed.**

**"Are you two crazy?" Grover said. "This place is weird."**

"Percy yes, me no," Annabeth says smiling.

**We ignored him.**

"Percy yes, Annabeth yes," Leo smiles and Annabeth hits him on the head.

**The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.**

_**"Bla-ha-ha!" **_**he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"**

Athena frowns. _Why would some sculpt a satyr?_

**We stopped at the warehouse door.**

**"Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters."**

**"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," Annabeth told him.**

"You really should listen to him," Jason says.

**"All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?"**

**"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."**

**"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," I reminded him.**

"Technically those aren't meat." Hermes points out.

**"Those are vegetables. Come on. Let's leave. These statues are ... looking at me."**

_Looking at him? _Poseidon thinks.

**Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman—at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.**

"Beautiful," Annabeth growls. "Yeah right."

**Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"**

**"They're ... um ..." Annabeth started to say.**

**"We're orphans," I said.**

"Nice cover up," Hermes says sarcastically while shaking his head.

**"Orphans?" the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"**

**"We got separated from our caravan," I said. "Our circus caravan.**

**The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we're lost. Is that food I smell?"**

"Wow, Percy's is just as bad as you Chiron," Leo laughs.

"When Percy's hungry, he'll do anything," Annabeth explains.

**"Oh, my dears," the woman said. "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."**

**We thanked her and went inside.**

**Annabeth muttered to me, "Circus caravan?"**

**"Always have a strategy, right?"**

**"Your head is full of kelp."**

"Truer words have never been spoken." Annabeth mutters.

**The warehouse was filled with more statues—people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with different expressions on their faces. I was thinking you'd have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of these statues, because they were all life-size. But mostly, I was thinking about food.**

"Men," Artemis mutters.

**Go ahead, call me an idiot **

"You're an idiot," Nearly everyone says.

**for walking into a strange lady's shop like that just because I was hungry,** **but I do impulsive stuff sometimes. **

**Plus, you've never smelled Aunty Em's burgers. The aroma was like laughing gas in the dentist's chair—it made everything else go away. I barely noticed Grover's nervous whimpers, or the way the statues' eyes seemed to follow me, or the fact that Aunty Em had locked the door behind us.**

"She's defiantly a monster, but who is she?" Jason asks.

"A wizard of Oz fan." Leo suggests. Everyone stares at him strangely.

"You know, aunty Em. Aunty Em." Leo says. The guys still look lost but the girls are confused. "How-" Annabeth starts.

'When you've been to six foster homes, you start to know all the lines by heart." Leo grumbles.

**All I cared about was finding the dining area. And sure enough, there it was at the back of the warehouse, a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho cheese dispenser. Everything you could want, plus a few steel picnic tables out front.**

**"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.**

**"Awesome," I said.**

"That idiot's going to get my daughter killed." Athena growls.

**"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."**

**Before I could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice orphans."**

**"Thank you, ma'am," Annabeth said.**

**Aunty Em stiffened, as if Annabeth had done some thing wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly, so I figured it must've been my imagination.**

"I'll show you something wrong," Annabeth glares.

**"Quite all right, Annabeth," she said. "You have such beautiful gray eyes, child." Only later did I wonder how she knew Annabeth's name, even though we had never introduced ourselves.**

Artemis frowns. She's fought many beasts, yet she couldn't place her finger on this one.

**Our hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries.**

**I was halfway through my burger before I remembered to breathe.**

"He's just like you Poseidon." Zeus jokes, earning a few laughs.

**Annabeth slurped her shake.**

**Grover picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.**

**"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.**

"Hissing noise?" Almost everyone asks.

**I listened, but didn't hear anything. Annabeth shook her head.**

**"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."**

**"I take vitamins. For my ears."**

"So know he can lie but he couldn't before." Hades shakes his head.

**"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."**

**Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her head dress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when I couldn't see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after the burger, and a little sleepy, and I figured the least I could do was try to make small talk with our hostess.**

**"So, you sell gnomes," I said, trying to sound interested.**

Annabeth snorts, he sounded anything but interested.

**"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."**

**"A lot of business on this road?"**

**"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."**

"I bet she does." Annabeth snarls, earning a few weird glances.

**My neck tingled, as if somebody else was looking at me. I turned, but it was just a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues.**

**But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even terrified.**

Piper's eyes widen but Annabeth shakes her head, telling her to be quiet.

"I have a feeling I should know who this is." Poseidon mutters.

"Me too." Athena agrees.

**"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."**

**"You make these statues yourself?" I asked.**

**"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." The sadness in her voice sounded so deep and so real that I couldn't help feeling sorry for her.**

Hestia's eyes pop open and she ends a pitiful glance at Annabeth. "You poor child." She says earning questioning glances from all of the other gods who didn't know.

**Annabeth had stopped eating. She sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"**

"Yes," Athena mutters still confused. "I know I should know her."

**"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Annabeth, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young.**

**I had a... a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."**

"Faded…" Athena mutters. "Which monsters have two sisters?" Nobody answers, there were too many.

**I wasn't sure what she meant, but I felt bad for her.**

**My eyelids kept getting heavier, my full stomach making me sleepy. Poor old lady. Who would want to hurt somebody so nice?**

**"Percy?" Annabeth was shaking me to get my attention. "Maybe we should go. I mean, the ringmaster will be waiting."**

**She sounded tense. I wasn't sure why. Grover was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but if Aunty Em found that strange, she didn't say anything.**

Everyone is sitting at the edge of their seats, knowing that something is about to happen.

**"Such beautiful gray eyes," Aunty Em told Annabeth again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen gray eyes like those."**

Athena tilts her head to the side. _Who has she offended?_

**She reached out as if to stroke Annabeth's cheek, but Annabeth stood up abruptly.**

**"We really should go."**

**"Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "The ringmaster is waiting! Right!"**

"Drop the ringmaster thing already, would you." Ares complains.

**I didn't want to leave. I felt full and content. Aunty Em was so nice. I wanted to stay with her a while.**

"He's being enchanted." Aphrodite says frowning. "Is she some sort of charm speaker?"

**"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"**

"A pose?" Athena asks.

**"A pose?" Annabeth asked warily.**

"Wow, you two are alike." Hermes mutters.

**"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set.** **Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."**

**Annabeth shifted her weight from foot to foot. "I don't think we can, ma'am. Come on, Percy—"**

**"Sure we can," I said.**

Everyone groans.

**I was irritated with Annabeth for being so bossy, so rude to an old lady who'd just fed us for free. "It's just a photo, Annabeth. What's the harm?"**

"There is a lot of harm." Piper warns, getting worried.

**"Yes, Annabeth," the woman purred. "No harm."**

**I could tell Annabeth didn't like it, but she allowed Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues.**

**Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girl in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."**

**"Not much light for a photo," I remarked.**

Everyone in the throne room who didn't already know is trying to put the pieces together to solve the puzzle.

**"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"**

**"Where's your camera?" Grover asked.**

**Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"**

**Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand."**

_Hmmm… Athena thinks._

**"Grover," Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dear."**

**She still had no camera in her hands.**

**"Percy—" Annabeth said.**

**Some instinct warned me to listen to Annabeth, but I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old lady's voice.**

**"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil..."**

Athena's Eyes pop open. "MEDUSA!" Athena shouts and everyone who didn't know gasps and looks straight at Annabeth, shocked.

**"Percy, something's wrong," Annabeth insisted.**

"Get out of there." Athena hisses looking at her daughter.

**"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"**

**"That **_**is **_**Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.**

Dionysus looks murderous after hearing that.

**"Look away from her!" Annabeth shouted. She whipped her Yankees cap onto her head and vanished. Her invisible hands pushed Grover and me both off the bench.**

**I was on the ground, looking at Aunt Em's sandaled feet.**

**I could hear Grover scrambling off in one direction, Annabeth in another. But I was too dazed to move.**

**Then I heard a strange, rasping sound above me. My eyes rose to Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails.**

"Ewww." Aphrodite shrieks.

**I almost looked higher, but somewhere off to my left Annabeth screamed, "No! Don't!"**

"Thank you again," Poseidon smiles at her. "I have a feeling I'm going to be saying that a lot."

Annabeth blushes.

**More rasping—the sound of tiny snakes, right above me, from ... from about where Aunty Em's head would be.**

**"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, **_**"Maia!" **_**to kick-start his flying sneakers.**

Hermes starts floating above his throne. "Maia." He sighs and he floats back down.

**I couldn't move. I stared at Aunty Em's gnarled claws, and tried to fight the groggy trance the old woman had put me in.**

**"Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face," she told me soothingly. **

**"Stay with me, Percy. All you have to do is look up."**

"DON'T" Poseidon yells.

**I fought the urge to obey. Instead I looked to one side and saw one of those glass spheres people put in gardens— a gazing ball. I could see Aunty Em's dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents.**

**Aunty Em.**

**Aunty "M."**

**How could I have been so stupid?**

Annabeth snickers and everybody looks at her.

"Inside joke." She say. "There's a reason I call him seaweed brain and Thalia calls him kelp head."

**Think, I told myself. How did Medusa die in the myth?**

**But I couldn't think. Something told me that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by my namesake, Perseus. She wasn't anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and rake open my face.**

"Please don't." Poseidon whimpers.

**"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Percy," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look up, to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. "Annabeth's mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."**

"She deserved it." Athena snarls.

**"Don't listen to her!" Annabeth's voice shouted, some where in the statuary. "Run, Percy!"**

**"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the girl, Percy. She is my enemy's daughter. I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Percy, you need not suffer."**

**"No," I muttered. I tried to make my legs move.**

**"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Percy? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. **

"Don't listen to her, Hero." Hestia whispers.

**You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain."**

**"Percy!" Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck!"**

**I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.**

**"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"**

**That finally jolted me into action. Knowing Grover, I was sure he'd miss Medusa and nail me.**

Annabeth laughs. "I'm so showing this book to Grover."

**I dove to one side.**

_**Thwack!**_

**At first I figured it was the sound of Grover hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage.**

**"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"**

Annabeth's face changes to one of pure fury. "If that bi- thing even tries to, I swear she will pay for eternity."

"Annabeth." Piper says shocked. "Language."

"1. I stopped myself and 2. Give me one word to describe Media."

"Touché."

**"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back.**

**I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.**

_**Ker-whack!**_

**"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spit ting.**

**Right next to me, Annabeth's voice said, "Percy!"**

"You probably just scared him to Hades and back." Leo laughed.

**I jumped so high my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Jeez! Don't do that!"**

"What did I tell you." Leo says.

**Annabeth took off her Yankees cap and became visible. 'You have to cut her head off."**

**"What? Are you crazy? Let's get out of here."**

**"Medusa is a menace. She's evil. I'd kill her myself, but..." Annabeth swallowed, as if she were about to make a difficult admission. "But you've got the better weapon. Besides, I'd never get close to her. She'd slice me to bits because of my mother. You—you've got a chance."**

**"What? I can't—"**

**"Look, do you want her turning more innocent people into statues?"**

**She pointed to a pair of statue lovers, a man and a woman with their arms around each other, turned to stone by the monster.**

"Low blow Annabeth." Piper tells her.

"I had to do something."

**Annabeth grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal. "A polished shield would be better." She studied the sphere critically. "The convexity will cause some distortion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of—"**

"Huh?" All of the guys in the room ask. Before either Annabeth or Athena can start there rant Piper intervenes.

"Duh, it's obvious. The dumbed up version of what she said is that the gazing ball would make medusa look a little different and that the reflection would be a little off as well as that a polished shield would be better." Everyone stared at her.

"What?"

"And people say you can't be smart and hot. There are two girls in this room that prove them wrong." Apollo winks at Piper and Annabeth and they both blushes a little. Jason quickly grabs Pipers hand and glares at Apollo. Piper kisses him on the cheek and smiles at his behavior.

Artemis looks at her brother. "And in some cases, like my brothers, you're neither."

**"Would you speak English?"**

"She is." Piper sighs.

**"I **_**am!" **_**She tossed me the glass ball.**

**"Just look at her in the glass. **_**Never **_**look at her directly."**

**"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"**

_**"Roooaaarrr!"**_

"Maybe not," Hermes laughs.

**"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.**

"Oh no, I think like a goat."

**"Hurry," Annabeth told me. "Grover's got a great nose, but he'll eventually crash."**

**I took out my pen and uncapped it. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand.**

**I followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair.**

**I kept my eyes locked on the gazing ball so I would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, not the real thing. Then, in the green tinted glass, I saw her.**

"By the way mom," Annabeth says. "She really is ugly."

**Grover was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!"**

**Medusa was about to lunge at him when I yelled, "Hey!"**

**I advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defending myself.**

**But she let me approach—twenty feet, ten feet.**

"What is she doing?" Athena asks, puzzled.

**I could see the reflection of her face now. Surely it wasn't really **_**that **_**ugly. The green swirls of the gazing ball must be distorting it, making it look worse.**

"Nope" Athena says proudly. "She really is that hideous."

**"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Percy," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."**

**I hesitated, fascinated by the face I saw reflected in the glass—the eyes that seemed to burn straight through the green tint, making my arms go weak.**

**From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Percy, don't listen to her!"**

**Medusa cackled. "Too late."**

**She lunged at me with her talons.**

Everyone gasps…

**I slashed up with my sword, heard a sickening **_**shlock!,**_** then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern—the sound of a monster disintegrating.**

and then cheers.

**Something fell to the ground next to my foot. It took all my willpower not to look. I could feel warm ooze soaking into my sock, little dying snake heads tugging at my shoelaces.**

**"Oh, yuck," Grover said. His eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck."**

**Annabeth came up next to me, her eyes fixed on the sky. She was holding Medusa's black veil. She said, "Don't move."**

**Very, very carefully, without looking down, she knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.**

'Yuck!" Aphrodite squeals.

**"Are you okay?" she asked me, her voice trembling.**

**"Yeah," I decided, though I felt like throwing up my double cheeseburger. "Why didn't ... why didn't the head evaporate?"**

**"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," she said. "Same as your minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."**

**Grover moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.**

I few snorts are heard.

**"The Red Baron," I said. "Good job, man."**

**He managed a bashful grin. "That really was **_**not **_**fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? **_**Not **_**fun."**

"No duh goat boy." Annabeth sighs.

**He snatched his shoes out of the air. I recapped my sword. Together, the three of us stumbled back to the ware house.**

**We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.**

**Finally I said, "So we have Athena to thank for this monster?"**

Athena looks a little offended by that.

**Annabeth flashed me an irritated look. "Your dad, actually. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girl friend. **

**They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still sweet on your dad. You probably reminded her of him."**

"So an old lady over three thousand years old has a thing for Percy?" Leo asks. "That takes being a Pedophile to a whole new level."

"Leo." Piper scolds hitting him on the back of the head while all the guys in the room are falling off their chair/thrones laughing.

**My face was burning. "Oh, so now it's **_**my **_**fault we met Medusa."**

**Annabeth straightened. In a bad imitation of my voice, she said: "'It's just a photo, Annabeth. What's the harm?'"**

"Can you show us?" Apollo asks.

"Can you stop hitting on girls?"

"Touché."

**"Forget it," I said. "You're impossible."**

**"You're insufferable."**

**"You're—"**

"Flirting," Aphrodite finishes smiling.

**"Hey!" Grover interrupted. "You two are giving me a migraine, and satyrs don't even **_**get **_**migraines. What are we going to do with the head?"**

**I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!**

**I was angry, not just with Annabeth or her mom, but with all the gods for this whole quest, for getting us blown off the road and in two major fights the very first day out from camp. At this rate, we'd never make it to L.A. alive, much less before the summer solstice.**

**What had Medusa said?**

_**Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue.**_

"Don't listen to her Percy." Poseidon pleads.

**I got up. "I'll be back."**

**"Percy," Annabeth called after me. "What are you—"**

**I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa's office. Her account book showed her six most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorate Hades and Persephone's garden. **

Everyone looks at Hades, shocked.

"I haven't ordered anything yet, I promise."

**According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.**

**In the cash register I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box.**

"What is he doing?" Hera asks.

**I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip:**

_**The Gods**_

_**MountOlympus**_

_**600th Floor,**_

_**EmpireState Building**_

_**New York, NY**_

_**With best wishes,**_

_**PERCY JACKSON**_

Most gods look shocked while Zeus looks out raged. "Why that little-"

**"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."**

**I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a **_**pop!**_

**"I **_**am **_**impertinent," I said.**

"Well, at least he admits it." Piper jokes.

**I looked at Annabeth, daring her to criticize.**

**She didn't. She seemed resigned to the fact that I had a major talent for ticking off the gods. "Come on," she muttered. "We need a new plan."**

Demeter closes the book. "I think that's it for the day. I'll show the demigods to their rooms." And with that all of the gods, except for Demeter, flash out.

Demeter looks at the demigods and smiles. "Follow me."

**So that's it for today. Again I'm sorry for the late updating. I hope the extra four chapters help make it up to you guys. Like I said, there's a lot going on in my life at the moment, so updating long chapters is sometimes hard to do. Hopefully it won't be another month until I update next, but unfortunately I can't be sure.**

**Also, if any of you who are reading this are Disney fans you might want to read this. Some friends and I made a Dark! Disney role play on tumblr, I'm Queen Elsa. If any of you are interested or just want to find out more, the account name is "stuckinunderland-rp" on tumblr. We don't have all of the bio's posted yet, but if you see one you like feel free to try out for it; and if you don't see the one you were hoping for, message us on tumblr and we can tell you if there's a role for that person and it just hasn't been posted yet or if we don't have that person.**

**Again, thanks for reading this and I really hope you've liked my story so far. Have a good week everyone.**


End file.
